
aassBL£-4iI 



CHRISTIAN FAITH IN AN AGE OF 
SCIENCE 



CHRISTIAN FAITH 
I N AN AGE OF 
SCIENCE . . . . 



WILLIAM NORTH RICE, Ph.D., 1.1 .D. 

Professor of Geology in Wesleyan University 



SECOND EDITION 



NEW YORK 
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON 

3 & 5 West 18th Street, near 5th Avenue 
1904 






Copyright, 1903 

By A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON 

Published December, 1903 



Second Printing, May, 1904 



gEf '^'J 



Printed by 
Eaton & Mains, New York, U. S. A. 



PREFACE 



In my student days I became deeply interested in 
the relations of science and religion, and in the tenta- 
tive and provisional solution of the problems which 
the advance of science offers to religious thought. The 
sympathy I have felt with the perplexities of successive 
classes of students, in an experience of more than thirty 
years as a teacher of geology and the cognate sciences, 
has kept the subject ever before my mind. The thought 
of many years finds expression in the present volume. 

I have ventured to hope that the book may be useful 
to several classes of people. To some of my brethren 
in the church, and particularly in the ministry, who 
have a hardly adequate appreciation of the value of 
the contribution which science has made to the world's 
thought, I have hoped that these pages may bring a 
more generous appreciation of the results of science, 
and a greater tolerance of those modifications of re- 
ligious belief which seem necessary to most scientific 
men. To some of my associates in scientific work, who 
may have come to suspect that Christianity is a mere 
survival from an unscientific age, I have hoped to show 
that the Man of Nazareth has still a message even for 
those who rejoice in the discovery and possession of 



Preface 

the new worlds of truth revealed by modern science. 
Above all, I have hoped to be of service to the same 
class with whose perplexities I have sympathized, 
whose doubts I have sought to resolve, and whose en- 
thusiasm for truth has been to me an inspiration, in my 
life as a teacher. I have hoped that this book may help 
some young men and women, reared in Christian 
homes and still cherishing the religious life which grew 
up amid the associations of their childhood, to feel a 
stronger confidence that the old heritage of Christian 
faith need not be lost, in gaining the new treasures of 
science whose acquisition is the joy of their student 
days. 

No attempt has been made to furnish a compete 
bibliography of the wide range of subjects treated in 
the book. Some references have been given, however, 
to acknowledge indebtedness for a fruitful thought, or 
to adduce an authority for some fact or opinion which 
has not yet become a part of the commonplace of sci- 
ence. Other references have been given for the con- 
venience of readers who may desire fuller and more 
detailed information on some of the subjects briefly 
treated in this work. As the book is intended for gen- 
eral readers rather than for specialists, I have not been 
particular to refer to the original sources, but have 
aimed to refer to books that are easily accessible. With 
very few exceptions the references are to books in the 
English language. 

Although the present work is essentially new, it con- 
tains a smSll amount of material which has been pre- 

vi 



Preface 

viously published. Certain portions are taken with ht- 
tle alteration from a book entitled 'Twenty-five Years 
of Scientific Progress, and Other Essays." Acknowl- 
edgment is due to Eaton & Mains for permission to 
republish the greater part of two articles which have 
appeared in the ''Methodist Review." Acknowledg- 
ment is due also to D. Appleton & Co. and to the Open 
Court Publishing Company for permission to copy a 
few figures. 

My thanks are due to a number of my colleagues in 
the Faculty of Wesleyan University for information 
kindly furnished, supplementing my meager knowledge 
of some subjects which the plan of the work made it 
necessary to treat. In conclusion, I take pleasure in 
acknowledging the assistance of my brother, Rev. 
Charles F. Rice, D.D., and my son, Professor Edward 
L. Rice, Ph.D., who have read the book in proof, the 
latter also in manuscript, and who have favored me 

with valuable criticisms. 

vii 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction i 

Part I. History of Scientific Discoveries Which 

Have Affected Religious Beliefs 15 

I. The Extension of the Universe in Space 15 

n. The Extension of the Universe in Time 41 

The Antiquity of Man 55 

Genesis and Geology 81 

HI. The Unity of the Universe 124 

The Conservation of Energy 125 

Evolution 142 

The Nebular Theory 142 

Evolution in Geology 153 

Evolution in Biology L59 

The Origin of Species 1 59 

The Origin of Life 238 

Theological Bearings of Evolution 251 

Part II. Status of Certain Doctrines of Chris- 
tianity IN AN Age of Science 289 

The Personality of Man 289 

The Personality of God 301 

Law in Nature 321 

Providence 337 

Prayer 341 

Miracle 351 

Revelation and the Bible 385 

Part III. General Status of Christian Evidences.. 393 

ix 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FIG. PAGE 

1. Earth, Venus, and Sun, according to the Ptolemaic 

theory 26 

2. Earth, Venus, and Sun, according to the Copernican 

theory. 27 

3. The fall of the moon 31 

4. Wall of Canon of Colorado River, showing unconform- 

able strata 53 

5. Picture of mammoth engraved by paleolithic man 61 

6. Paleolithic implements 63 

7. Neolithic implements 64 

8. Eg3^ptian mural painting, showing Caucasian and Negro 

profiles 78 

9. Skeleton of anterior limb in various vertebrates 178 

10. Development of the gastrula in Amphioxus 182 

11. Embryos of four classes of vertebrates 185 

.12. Skull of Pithecanthropus erectus 258 

13. Profiles of human and simian skulls 259 

14. Curve represented by equation, ay = ±^ x{x — b){x — c). . 333 

15. Curve represented by equation, ay = ±x^ x — c 335 

xi 



INTRODUCTION 



No revolution in the intellectual and moral life of 
mankind is comparable with that which was wrought 
by the influence of the life and teaching of Jesus of 
Nazareth. The contrast between the stupendous re- 
sult and the apparent feebleness of the means by which 
it was effected is amazing. A Galilean peasant, with- 
out education, without social position or any other 
element of worldly power, strolled up and down the 
land of Palestine, talking of the Heavenly Father and 
of the kingdom of God. He wrote no book, he de- 
veloped no system of philosophy, he effected no defi- 
nite social organization. His teaching aroused the 
rancorous hostility of the chief priests and other re- 
ligious leaders of his own people. Their malice 
brought him to trial before the Roman procurator, and 
terrorized the procurator into ordering his crucifixion. 

The little band of disciples that he left, inspired by 
their love for him and their faith in his resurrection, 
entered upon the seemingly quixotic undertaking of 
converting the world to a new religion. The most 
conspicuous leaders of this little band were a group 
of fishermen whom Jesus had called from their nets 
on the shore of Galilee. A quarter of a century later 



Introduction 

it was said of the body of Christians, "Not many wise 
men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble 
are called." Among the original apostles there was 
not one whom the world would have reckoned as wise 
or mighty or noble. From the very beginning, the 
chief priests and religious leaders of the Jews cherished 
a violent hostility to the new sect, and employed against 
its members such measures of persecution as they were 
able to practice in their condition of political depend- 
ence. Outside the pale of the Jewish nation the body 
of Christians was for a time protected by its very 
insignificance; but, as the church increased in num- 
bers, it provoked antagonism. It came into conflict 
with a polytheistic religion, enshrined in poetry whose 
beauty the world will never outgrow, incarnated in 
sculpture whose fragmentary relics are the admiration 
of mankind. It found the polytheistic faith inter- 
tv^ined with all social and political institutions, so that 
refusal to conform to the rites of the popular religion 
ostracized the Christians from society, and exposed 
them to the penalties involved in disobedience to the 
laws of the state. In seeking dominion over the minds 
and the conduct of men, the new religion came into 
competition not only with the popular religion, but also 
with systems of philosophy in which some of the 
workFs greatest thinkers had sought to solve the mys- 
teries of life and destiny. The new religion encoun- 
tered the contempt of the learned and the hatred of 
the vulgar. The tremendous power of the Roman 
empire was exerted for its suppression. Persecution 

2 



Early Struggles of Christianity 

unto death threatened the Christians, now from the 
violence of mobs, now from the severity of legal tribu- 
nals. The Roman populace amused itself with their 
dying agonies, as they fought with lions in the arena ; 
and, clothed in pitchy shirts, their bodies flamed as 
ghastly torches to light up the gardens of Nero. 

Yet Christianity pursued its resistless way, and in 
less than three hundred years after the death of its 
founder it had become a legalized religion throughout 
the Roman empire. In the year of our Lord 313, the 
edict of Constantine and Licinius repealed all statutes 
against the Christians, and gave full toleration to the 
new faith. The Galilean had conquered. 

It must be supposed that Christianity thus won its 
way, in spite of all opposing forms of religious and 
philosophic belief, because, in the light of such knowl- 
edge as the world then possessed, it appeared to be 
probably true. Not, indeed, that then, or at any other 
time, were men's opinions purely logical, in the sense 
of being formed by a purely intellectual process of 
weighing of evidence. The progress of Christianity 
was unquestionably due largely to emotional influ- 
ences. The pitying admiration with which multitudes 
beheld the calm fortitude and forgiving meekness of 
the martyrs doubtless made many converts to Chris- 
tianity. But there was a sound, though unformulated, 
logic in such play of feeling, for there is a strong pre- 
sumption that a faith whose fruit is transcendent good- 
ness is rooted in essential truth. But, however the 
intellectual processes of men may be modified by emo- 



Introduction 

tional excitement, it is broadly true that the opinions 
of masses of men, though never wholly rational, are 
never wholly irrational. We must therefore suppose 
that, in the light of all the knowledge then available, 
the evidences of Christianity were such as to establish 
its probable truth. 

But the intellectual atmosphere of our age is vastly 
different from that of the first century of the Chris- 
tian era; and it is a serious question whether the 
religion whose birth and rapid early growth took place 
in the intellectual environment of that far-off age can 
continue to subsist in the very different environment 
of our time. 

The contrast between the first century and the twen- 
tieth may be broadly expressed in a single word. That 
was an unscientific age, this is a scientific age. There 
was in general little of science even among the philos- 
ophers of the ancient world. Some, indeed, there were 
who manifested in considerable degree the scientific 
spirit. The works of Aristotle give abundant evi- 
dence of careful observation of physical phenomena 
and sound inductive reasoning based upon such ob- 
servation. The Museum of Alexandria was the home 
of a group of investigators whose spirit and whose 
achievements were truly scientific. But the most of 
the ancient philosophers were given to a priori specula- 
tions in regard to the mysteries of existence, rather 
than to observation of definite phenomena and induc- 
tions based thereon. 

Moreover, what little science there was in the 

4 



An Unscientific Age 

schools of philosophers failed to exert any consider- 
able influence upon popular thought. The doctrines 
of the philosophers were held and taught in esoteric 
fashion. In the absence of the art of printing, books 
were rare and costly, and anything like a general 
diffusion of knowledge was impossible. Nor did 
the philosophers wish to diffuse their knowledge. 
They counted philosophic thought the high privilege 
of a select few, who dwelt apart from the vulgar herd, 
like the gods of Olympus. The disciples of a philoso- 
pher constituted in general a sort of secret society. 
They were initiated into mysteries which were their 
exclusive possession. They never dreamed of any 
obligation to hold the lamp of truth which was given 
to them so as to illumine the path of common mortals. 
In part, too, this esoteric habit of the philosophers was 
necessary for self-preservation. Their views were 
often more or less in conflict with the teachings of the 
popular religion, but they suffered no peril while they 
philosophized in secret and conformed in public to the 
popular ritual. Had the teaching of philosophy been 
more public, there might have been other martyrs be- 
sides Socrates. Untouched by the influence of science, 
the popular conception of the universe was largely 
poetic and mythological. The age when the sunbeams 
were the golden arrows of Apollo, is very far removed 
from an age in which we measure the wave-lengths 
and count the vibrations of light. 

Christianity was the heir of Judaism, and its herit- 
age included the Hebrew Scriptures known to us now 

5 



Introduction 

as the Old Testament; and the ideas of the natural 
world which prevailed among the early Christians 
were essentially those represented in the Old Testa- 
ment. Exquisitely beautiful often are those Hebrew 
representations of the universe, full of the richest 
poetry of nature; but honest exegesis can find there 
no faintest gleam of the light of science. 

On one point there was substantial agreement among 
learned and unlearned, pagans and Christians; and 
that was the 'geocentric constitution of the universe. 
The earth was the center around which the heavenly 
bodies revolved, and those bodies were functionally 
appendages to the earth. A few of the Greek philoso- 
phers, indeed, had thought of the sun as the center of 
the system ; but they had no very satisfactory evidence 
for such an opinion, and with them it was perhaps 
rather an accidental vagary than a manifestation of 
surpassing wisdom. Certain it is that there was sub- 
stantial unanimity in the notion of the central position 
of the earth. In regard to the form of the earth, the 
learned generally regarded the earth as round, while 
the general public held it to be flat. Some of the Greek 
geometers even reached approximately correct notions 
in regard to the size of the earth. But popular thought 
knew nothing of such notions. To the Hebrew people 
the world was flat, and the heaven was a curtain 
stretched over it like the roof of a vast tent, supported 
by mountain pillars around the borders of the earth. 
From time to time windows were opened in that roof, 
through which came the fertilizing rains and snows. 

6 



Geocentric Conception of the Universe 

The celestial luminaries were the adornments of that 
great curtain which formed the roof of this earthly 
tabernacle. The early Christians accepted substan- 
tially the old Hebrew conception of the earth. 

In the writings of some of the Greek philosophers 
we find some anticipation of evolutionary ideas, some 
recognition of the truth that the earth has come to be 
what it is by a series of gradual changes; but those 
notions were crude and premature. The mytholog- 
ical cosmogonies were mere vagaries. The conception 
of the egg from which emerged the universe, and the 
conception of the primal element of water from which 
all things were evolved, were alike destitute of any 
scientific value. Christianity adopted from the He- 
brew Scriptures the doctrine of the origination of all 
things in a series of creative fiats in a literal week a 
few thousand years ago. 

Nowhere was there a conception of dynamic unity 
in the universe. The conception of the unity of na- 
ture can belong only to a comparatively advanced 
stage of scientific development. To the unscientific 
mind the processes of nature seem to result from the 
play of agencies mutually independent and often an- 
tagonistic. Polytheism is the natural counterpart of 
the unscientific view of nature. The Hebrews, unlike 
the nations around them, were monotheists; but how 
far the actual faith of the mass of the Hebrew people 
was a strict philosophic monotheism may be ques- 
tioned. Apparently, at least in the early stages of 
Hebrew religion, a practical monotheism coexisted 

7 



Introduction 

with a theoretical polytheism. Jehovah was a god so 
much mightier than all other deities that they deemed 
it wise to ignore all others and worship him alone. 
Before the time of the Christian era, however, Hebrew 
faith seems to have reached the standard of genuine 
monotheism. But, though monotheistic faith gives to 
nature a sort of unity, as being all the work of one 
Creator, the Hebrew conception of God was too 
grossly anthropomorphic to lead to any such thought 
of the unity of nature as modern science has developed. 
A God subject to human fickleness and caprice could 
form no comprehensive plan whose expression in na- 
ture would be changeless law. Nowhere in the first 
century was there any such faith as the world has now 
reached in the uniformity of nature or the constancy 
of natural law. Miracles or prodigies could be ac- 
cepted without investigation, and on the slightest evi- 
dence of testimony, as though they were as credible 
as the most ordinary facts. The flippant, self-indul- 
gent Herod could believe that John the Baptist, whom 
he had murdered, had risen from the dead ; and widely 
diffused among the Roman populace was the be- 
lief that Nero would return from the realm of shades 
to curse the world again with his presence. 

The change in the view of nature wrought by mod- 
ern science involves three specially important ideas : 

I. The extension of the universe in space, and the 
heliocentric constitution of the solar system. The 
heavenly bodies are not mere appendages of the earth, 
insignificant in size, and revolving at a short distance 

8 



Characteristic Ideas of Science 

from the earth. They are great worlds" distributed 
through space at immense distances; and, of that sis- 
terhood of worlds to which our earth immediately be- 
longs, the sun and not the earth is the center. 

2. The extension of the universe in time. The uni- 
verse has come to be what it is by a long series of 
changes, and the earth and the heavens contain monu- 
ments wherein the stages of that history are recorded. 

3. The unity of the universe. Through all the 
seeming chaos of phenomena runs one all-pervading, 
all-controlling system of law. The discovery of uni- 
versal gravitation was the beginning of the conception 
of dynamic unity in the universe ; and in later time the 
idea of the unity of the universe has found its com- 
pletest expression in the doctrine of conservation of 
energy and in the doctrine of evolution, the one as- 
cribing to the universe a unity of force, and the other 
ascribing to it a continuity of development. 

The question, then, before us is whether Christian- 
ity can survive the prodigious change which has taken 
place in the intellectual environment. It is obvious 
that so great a change in the knowledge and thought 
of the world must involve changes in many beliefs 
more or less closely connected with Christianity. An 
alleged miraculous event is necessarily regarded in a 
very different light at the beginning of the twentieth 
century from that in which it was regarded in the first 
century. The miraculous character of a narrative was 
then no reason why any one should fail to believe it. 
In this age of scientific thought, every alleged miracle 

9 



Introduction 

labors under a heavy burden of a priori improbability. 
There may be sufficient reason for accepting certain 
miracles as historic, but they can no longer be accepted 
in the unquestioning way which once was possible. 
The status of miracle in relation to scientific thought 
is of special importance, since one alleged miracle — 
the resurrection of Jesus — is not an incidental fact con- 
nected with Christianity, nor merely an evidence of 
Christianity, but an integral part of Christianity. The 
denial of the resurrection of Jesus would involve a 
radical reconstruction of Christian doctrine. 

In the Gospel according to Luke, and in the Acts 
of the Apostles, we are told that Jesus led his disciples 
to the Mount of Olives, and that, after talking with 
them, ''he was taken up, and a cloud received him out 
of their sight."* Those men accordingly saw, or 
thought they saw, the body of Jesus ascending verti- 
cally from the earth until it was hidden from them by 
a cloud. It is not necessary for us here to discuss how 
far their impression corresponded to objective fact, 
and how far it was merely subjective. Whatever they 
saw, or thought they saw, the phenomenon had one 
meaning to men who supposed that directly above the 
flat and stationary earth, and beyond the cloudy ex- 
panse of the firmament, was the throne of God ; and it 
must have a very different meaning to men who believe 
that the earth is whirling through space at a rate of 
eighteen and one half miles per second, and that the di- 
rection of the zenith changes hourly through an angle 

* Acts, i, 9. 
IQ 



Can Christianity Survive? 

equal to 15° multiplied by the cosine of the latitude.^ 
This story of the ascension is a very striking illustra- 
tion of the truth that the progress of science renders 
inevitable some change in the beliefs that have been 
considered an integral part of Christianity. The ques- 
tion is whether the necessary changes can be made, 
and the essentials of Christian faith preserved. Can 
Christianity be so modified as to bring it into har- 
mony with the new environment? or must it share the 
fate of all ill-adjusted organisms, and become extinct? 

The discussion before us will be divided into three 
parts. 

In the first part, we shall pass briefly in review the 
history of those scientific discoveries which have re- 
sulted in developing the three characteristic ideas of 
the extension of the universe in space, the extension 
of the universe in time, and the unity of the universe. 
The history will be sketched in an order partly chron- 
ological .and partly logical. In connection with each 
series of scientific discoveries we shall consider what 
changes those discoveries have necessitated in Chris- 
tian doctrine. 

In the second part, we shall consider the status of 
certain doctrines of Christianity, in relation, not to 
a single scientific discovery, but to the general intel- 
lectual atmosphere which the progress of science has 
developed. 

In the third part, we shall consider the general 
status of Christian evidence in relation to the intel- 
lectual atmosphere of a scientific age. 

II 



Introduction 

This treatment of the subject will necessarily in- 
volve some repetition; as it will be necessary to dis- 
cuss somewhat systematically in the second part 
certain doctrines to which reference is made more or 
less extensively in the first part, and those scientific 
discoveries whose history is sketched in the first part, 
must from time to time be referred to in the second 
and the third part. It is believed, however, that this 
order of treatment is justified by sufificient reasons in 
spite of this obvious objection. It is needless to say 
that the first part of the discussion will be chiefly 
scientific, the second and third parts chiefly theological. 

12 



PART I 

HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES 

WHICH HAVE AFFECTED 

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 



PART I 

History of Scientific Discoveries Which Have 
Affected Religious Beliefs 

L — The Extension of the Universe in Space* 

The approximately spherical form of the earth was 
clearly recognized by Aristotle and others of the 
Greek philosophers, and some of the ancient geometers 
had even reached approximately correct notions of 
the size of the earth. The arguments which led the 
scientists of classical time to a belief in the approx- 
imately spherical form of the earth were substantially 
the same whose validity is recognized in the thought 
of to-day, except that the experimental proof afforded 
by the circumnavigation of the globe was j^et many 
centuries in the future. Attention was called by the 
ancient astronomers to the change in the elevation of 
the pole star in journeying northward or southward, 
and to the fact that in such a journey some stars are 
lost to view behind the traveler, while others become 
visible before him. The circular outline of the shadow 

*The history of astronomy from Hipparcluis to Newton is given with great 
fullness in Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences. A brief and interesting 
sketch of the main features of the history is given in Cooke, T/ie Credentials 
of Science the Warrant of Faith. See also article on Astronomy^ by Proctor, 
in Eticyclopcedia Britantiica ; Lodge, Pioneers of Science. 

15 



The Extension of the Universe in Space 

of the earth cast upon the moon in a lunar edipse was 
also recognized as a cogent argument for the sphericity 
of the earth. But, while the Greek philosophers rec- 
ognized the evidence of the rotundity of the earth, the 
belief of the mass of the population was undoubtedly 
that the earth was flat. The Christian church in its 
early days for the most part accepted the latter view, 
in accordance with the implications of the Hebrew 
Scriptures. But, during the centuries which inter- 
vened between the founding of the Christian church 
and the epoch of great maritime discoveries at the 
close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth 
century, both opinions were held in the Christian 
church. The belief in the sphericity of the earth, 
though not the belief of Christian people in general, 
was held by learned men in the church, and was toler- 
ated. The proof which finally brought a practically 
universal acceptance of the doctrine of the sphericity 
of the earth was furnished by the great voyages of 
discovery. In 1492 Columbus reached the West In- 
dies by journeying westward from Spain. In 1498 
Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and 
sailed through the Indian Ocean till he reached the 
shores of India. But it was not till 1522 that the 
consummate feat of circumnavigation of the globe 
was accomplished. In that year one of Magellan's 
ships returned to Spain, after a voyage of three years, 
in which it had found the way into the Pacific through 
the strait whose name commemorates the achieve- 
ment, traversed the whole extent of the Pacific, and 

16 



Spherical Form of the Earth 

rounded the Cape of Good Hope ; though the intrepid 
commander of the expedition had been killed in the 
PhiHppine Islands. The result of that voyage was the 
universal recognition of the sphericity of the earth. 
To men destitute of the spirit of science, who formed 
their opinions in what they supposed to be the light of 
common sense, the circular outline of the darkened 
area on the eclipsed moon might seem evidence all too 
shadowy to justify a belief which seemed to contradict 
the common experience of mankind; though faith in 
that shadow sustained the strong soul of Magellan 
through all the fearful hardships of that memorable 
voyage. But even men of common sense could not 
resist the evidence which was furnished by the cir- 
cumnavigation of the globe. 

While there was difference of opinion between the 
ignorant and the learned in ancient times in regard to 
the form of the earth, there was practically no differ- 
ence in regard to the position of the earth relative to 
the other bodies of the universe. The geocentric con- 
stitution of the universe was accepted with substantial 
unanimity. Before considering the series of discov- 
eries that led to a change from the geocentric to the 
heliocentric conception of the solar system, let us con- 
sider the facts in regard to the apparent movement of 
the heavenly bodies, and the way in which those facts 
were explained by the Greek astronomers. Every 
one has observed that the whole celestial sphere — 
the sun, moon, and stars — appears to revolve around 
the earth from east to west, so that each of the heav- 

17 



The Extension of the Universe in Space 

enly bodies appears to rise in the east, and, after 
passing across the sky, to vanish below the horizon 
in the west. It was, however, very early observed 
that seven of the celestial bodies which are large 
enough and near enough to be seen with the naked eye, 
have a movement independent of that general move- 
ment of the celestial sphere. The sun, the moon, and 
the five planets. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and 
Saturn, were observed to change their place with ref- 
erence to the other bodies, the so-called fixed stars. 
The appearance is that, while the celestial sphere as 
a whole revolves around the earth from east to west 
in every twenty- four hours, these seven wanderers 
have a slower independent revolution from west to 
east. Closer study of the apparent movements of these 
bodies showed that their apparent revolution from 
west to east within the celestial sphere is executed 
with unequal velocity. In fact, in the case of the five 
planets, the movement is not even constant in direc- 
tion. They seem to move for a certain time from west 
to east, and then to stop and move for a time from east 
to west, though the net result of the movement which 
they have, independent of the general movement of 
the celestial sphere, is a revolution from west to east 
This irregularity in the velocity and the direction of 
the movement of these planets was difficult to under- 
stand; for, in all the speculations of the ancient as- 
tronomers, it was taken for granted that the motion 
of the heavenly bodies must be supposed to be in cir- 
cular orbits and with uniform velocity. Of course we 

i8 



HiPPARCHUS AND PtOLEMY 

know now that both of these presuppositions were 
false, and it is a Httle difficult for us to understand 
why those notions were held with so great a degree 
of confidence. But it was supposed that the circle, in 
its complete symmetry, was the one perfect curve, and 
that it would be contrary to the eternal fitness of things 
for tlie heavenly bodies to move in any other than a 
circular path, or to move otherwise than with uniform 
velocity. Erroneous as were these notions, there was 
a truth underlying them — the truth expressed in 
Plato's oft-quoted phrase, "God geometrizes" — the 
truth that the harmony of perfect law pervades the 
universe, and that all seeming irregularities in nature 
are due only to the imperfection of our knowledge. The 
problem to be solved by the Greek astronomers was, 
then, to account for the apparently irregular move- 
ments of the sun, moon, and planets, on the supposi- 
tion that their real movements were in circular orbits, 
and with uniform velocity. The solution of the prob- 
lem was given by Hipparchus in the middle of the 
second century before Christ; and, with somewhat 
fuller elaboration, the same theory was given in the 
''Almagest" of Ptolemy about the middle of the second 
century after Christ. The title by which Ptolemy's 
work is known is a curious illustration of a phase of 
the intellectual history of mankind. Ptolemy's work, 
which, of course, was written in Greek, bore the title, 
'H fieyloTTj avvra^iq TTJg aGrgovofiiag. But, in the middle 
ages, the original work of Ptolemy was lost, and 
no manuscript of it was discovered until the fifteenth 

19 



The Extension of the Universe in Space 

century. In the meanwhile it had been translated Into 
Arabic in the Saracen revival of learning, and so came 
to bear the Arabic name of "Almagest," which is es- 
sentially a hybrid combination of an Arabic article 
with the adjective which forms the first word of the 
Greek title. To medieval scholars the writings of 
Ptolemy were known by a Latin translation made 
from the Arabic. 

The theory of Hipparchtis and Ptolemy in regard 
to the movement of the sun around the earth was 
simply that the earth was not in the center of the sun's 
orbit, but a little removed from the center. This, of 
course, w^ould give to the apparent movement of the 
sun a variable velocity. The sun would seem to move 
faster in that part of its orbit in which it was nearer 
to the earth, and more slowly in that part of its 
orbit in which it was farther from the earth. In the 
case of the moon, whose path appeared more irregular 
than that of the sun, it was necessary to make the 
further supposition that the orbit itself revolves in a 
retrograde direction, or from east to west, so that the 
position of the apogee (the point of the orbit most 
distant from the earth) is continually changing. The 
apparent retrograde movement exhibited at times by 
the planets could not be explained in quite so simple a 
way. It was, however, explained, consistently with 
the supposition of uniform circular movement, by the 
supposition that a planet revolves in one circle called 
the epicycle, whose center in turn revolves in another 
circle called the deferent. 

20 



Eccentrics and Epicycles 

When the movement of the planets was formulated 
in this wise, as a revolution in an epicycle, which it- 
self revolves in a deferent, certain coincidences re- 
vealed themselves. It was necessary to make Mer- 
cury and Venus revolve in their respective deferents, 
and to make Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn revolve in their 
respective epicycles, in exactly one year. The fact, 
then, that the time of revolution of two of the planets 
in their deferents, and of the other three in their 
epicycles, was exactly identical with the time of the 
revolution of the sun in its eccentric orbit, ought, it 
would now^ seem, to have suggested the idea that those 
planets were in some w^ay connected with the sun in 
their movement; but no such significance seems to 
have been recognized. 

As astronomical observations became more accu- 
rate and more numerous, additional irregularities in 
the apparent movements of the planets forced them- 
selves upon the attention of the astronomers; for we 
now know that the actual path of the planets, under 
the influence of the mutual gravitation of the sun and 
planets, is exceedingly complex. But each new dis- 
covery of a seeming irregularity in planetary move- 
ments only suggested some additional device in the 
construction of epicycles; so that the theory became 
overweighted by its excess of complexity. It was in 
allusion to the extreme complexity which the theory 
of epicycles finally developed, that Milton represents 
his "affable archangel" as intimating to Adam that 
the Creator had left the construction of the heavens 

21 



The Extension of the Universe in Space 

unrevealed in order that he might find amusement in 
seeing how men would puzzle themselves with the 
problems of the universe — 

"How gird the sphere 
With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, 
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb." 

It was in allusion to the same complexity that Al- 
phonso X. of Castile is said to have remarked that, 
"if God had consulted him at the creation, the universe 
should have been on a better and simpler plan." 

It will be noticed that the Ptolemaic solution of the 
problem presented by the apparent movements of the 
heavenly bodies was purely formal and geometrical. 
It attempted no explanation of the nature of the force 
by which the planets were impelled in their move- 
ments, and constrained to move in their particular 
orbits. The aim of the Ptolemaic system was solely 
to find a supposable combination of circles, in which 
bodies, moving with uniform velocity, would exhibit 
the apparent movements of the planets as seen from 
the earth. The problem, as thus defined, presented by 
the apparent movements of the planets so far as known 
to Hipparchus and Ptolemy, was completely solved 
by the system of epicycles; and, as later refinements 
of observation detected other and minuter apparent 
irregularities in the planetary movements, a more elab- 
orate construction on the same principles sufficed for 
their form.ulation. The time for a dynamic explana- 
tion of the movements of the heavenly bodies was 
not yet. 

22 



Copernicus 

The Ptolemaic astronomy held substantially undis- 
puted sway until the middle of the sixteenth century. 
In 1543 a German priest, Kopernik, better known as 
Copernicus, since in the fashion of the time he wrote 
in Latin, published the epoch-making work in which 
the heliocentric arrangement of the solar system was 
advocated. The book had been written many years 
before, but its publication was delayed until the very 
year of its author's death. It is interesting to note 
that, though the ancient world was well-nigh unan- 
imous in the belief in the geocentric arrangement of 
the universe, Copernicus was led to speculate in regard 
to the possibility of a different arrangement by the fact 
that a few of the Greek philosophers had held the 
heliocentric view. According to the Copernican the- 
ory, the apparent movement of the whole celestial 
sphere from east to west is due simply to a rotation of 
the earth, w^iile the apparent movements of sun, moon, 
and planets within the celestial sphere are explained 
by the supposition that the moon revolves around the 
earth, and that the earth and the other planets revolve 
around the sun. 

In two important respects the new theory, as an- 
nounced by Copernicus, possessed greater probability 
than the Ptolemaic. In the first place, the constitution 
of the solar system which it afforded was more simple. 
Copernicus was, indeed, still under the dominion of 
the old notion that the symmetry and order of the 
universe required that the planets should move in cir- 
cular orbits and with uniform velocity. He was there- 

23 



The Extension of the Universe in Space 

fore compelled to use the device of epicycles to some 
extent in order to formulate the apparent irregularities 
in the planetary movements. He was, nevertheless, 
able to make a decidedly simpler scheme than the 
Ptolemaic. 

A second great advantage of the Copernican system 
was that it gave a meaning to the coincidences be- 
tween the periodic times of the planets and that of 
the sun. The Ptolemaic system, it will be remem- 
bered, made Mercury and Venus revolve in their re- 
spective deferents in exactly one year. This coinci- 
dence, entirely unmeaning on the Ptolemaic theory, 
was at once explained by the Copernican theory. Ac- 
cording to the Copernican theory, the orbits of Mer- 
cury and Venus lie between the earth's orbit and the 
sun; hence the apparent eastward movement of these 
planets in company with the sun is due simply to the 
revolution of the earth itself around the sun. In like 
manner, the Ptolemaic astronomy had assumed the 
revolution of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in their re- 
spective epicycles to be accomplished in one year. As 
the orbits of these planets, according to the Copernican 
system, lie outside the orbit of the earth, it is obvious 
that the main fact of their apparent eastward move- 
ment is due to their own revolution around the sun, 
while the chief apparent irregularity in their move- 
ment is due to the motion of the earth around the sun, 
and must, therefore, necessarily have an annual period. 
A theory that explains remarkable coincidences in the 
phenomena to which It relates, has obviously a vast 

24 



Galileo 

advantage over a theory that leaves such coincidences 
unexplained. 

Early in the seventeenth century two most impor- 
tant observations were made which greatly strength- 
ened the Copernican astronomy. The telescope was 
invented in or about the year 1609, and in 16 10 Gali- 
leo availed himself of the newly invented instrument 
to make two discoveries of immense theoretical im- 
portance. The first was the discovery of the moons 
of Jupiter. The observation of a group of satellites 
revolving around that planet was obviously a strong 
confirmation of the doctrine of Copernicus that the 
moon accompanies the earth as a satellite in its path 
around the sun. The other discovery made in the 
same year afforded even more conclusive proof of the 
superiority of the Copernican to the Ptolemaic system. 
Galileo found that Venus reveals to the telescope a 
series of phases like those of the moon, and that at 
times the visible illuminated surface of the planet is 
much more than a semicircle. Since, according to the 
Ptolemaic astronomy, the orbits of Mercury and Ve- 
nus were situated between the earth and the orbit of 
the sun, and their revolution in their respective def- 
erents was accomplished in the same time as the 
revolution of the sun, those planets must always be 
nearly in the line joining the earth and the sun, as 
shown in Fig. i. It was obvious, therefore, that, if 
they were opaque bodies visible only by reflected sun- 
light, the illuminated portion of the disk of the plan- 
et, as seen from the earth, could never be as much 

25 



The Extension of the Universe in Space 

as a semicircle. By the Copernican system, on the 
other hand, the planets revolving around the sun in 
orbits interior to that of the earth must sometimes be 




Fig. 1.— Earth, Venus, and Sun, according to the Ptolemaic theory. 
E, earth; V, Venus; 5, sun; dd\ deferent; ee' , epicycle. 

between the earth and the sun, and sometimes beyond 
the sun, as shown in Fig. 2. The discovery of the 
gibbous aspect of Venus was, accordingly, a well-nigh 
conclusive proof of the falsity of the Ptolemaic system. 
Copernicus, as we have seen, still clung to the old 

26 



Kepler 

notion of circular orbits. The honor of the discovery 
of the actual form of the planetary orbits belongs to 
Kepler. In 1609 he formulated the two propositions 
which have since been known as the first and the sec- 
ond law of planetary movements : namely, first, that 




Fig. 2. — Earth, Venus, and Sun, according to the Copernican 
theory. The aspect of Venus, in the part of its orbit in 
which it is here shown, would be gibbous. 

the orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the sun at one 
of the foci ; second, that the radius vector describes 
equal areas in equal times. In the discovery of these 
two laws, respectively, the two venerable fictions of 

27 



The Extension of the Universe in Space 

circular motion and uniform velocity were abandoned. 
But these laws, as discovered and formulated by Kep- 
ler, involved no more of dynamical significance than 
the conceptions which they displaced. The ellipses of 
Kepler were as purely formal and geometrical, and as 
destitute of any dynamical significance, as the eccen- 
trics and epicycles of Hipparchus and Ptolemy. The 
problem of Kepler was in its essence the same as that 
of Hipparchus — to imagine a curved path along which 
a planet might move in accordance with some definitely 
formulable law, so as to present the apparent move- 
ments actually observed. But observational astron- 
omy had made great advances since the time of Hip- 
parchus. The Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe, in 
particular, had determined the positions of the planets 
with much greater accuracy than before; and Kepler 
had worked with him especially in the study of the 
planet Mars. With wonderful fertility of conjecture, 
Kepler tried various combinations of circles, endeavor- 
ing in vain to get a satisfactory formulation of the 
facts then known in regard to the positions of Mars. 
At length the idea occurred to him to try an ellipse in- 
stead of a circle. First he put the sun at the center 
of his hypothetical ellipse; and, when that failed to 
reach a satisfactory result, he conceived the idea of 
putting the sun at the focus. He had reached at last 
a conjecture which could be verified. His final hy- 
pothesis had become a law of nature, and the elliptic 
form of the planetary orbits has been ever since one 
of the undisputed truths of science. 

28 



Newton 

Ten years later Kepler announced his third law: 
namely, that the squares of the periodic times of the 
planets are proportional to the cubes of their mean dis- 
tances from the sun. 

Thus far astronomical theory had been purely geo- 
metrical, but the time had nearly come for astronomy 
to become a dynamic science. Before this could be 
done, however, there was need of a preparation to be 
effected by the progress of related sciences. On the 
one hand, there was need of a fuller knowledge of the 
principles of mechanics. Among the physicists of the 
seventeenth century by whose labors this work was 
accomplished, an eminent place belongs to Galileo, 
whose work as a physicist was scarcely second in im- 
portance to his work as an astronomer. There was 
need, too, of a more effective mathematical method 
for the solution of the extremely complex geometrical 
problems presented by the movements of the heavenly 
bodies ; and this was furnished in the invention of the 
differential and integral calculus, achieved simulta- 
neously by Newton and Leibnitz. 

With the knowledge of physics which had been ac- 
cumulated earlier in the century, and with the power- 
ful mathematical apparatus which he himself had in- 
vented, Newton was ready to render the closing years 
of the seventeenth century illustrious by a discovery 
which has probably been, in its influence upon the 
course of human thought, the most important single 
discovery in the history of science. Newton's epoch- 
making work, the "Philosophies Naturalis Principia 

29 



The Extension of the Universe in Space 

Mathematical' was published in 1686 and 1687. He 
showed that, on the supposition that the planets are at- 
tracted to the sun by a central force whose intensity 
varies inversely as the square of the distance, the three 
laws of Kepler — the elliptical orbits, the description of 
equal areas by the radius vector in equal times, and the 
proportion between the squares of the periodic times 
and the cubes of the mean distances — would follow as 
necessary consequences. Kepler's laws were no longer 
simply the ingenious solution of a geometrical prob- 
lem; they had become an expression of the dynamic 
constitution of the universe. 

But what is that force by which the sun attracts the 
planets to itself? A conjectural answer to that ques- 
tion, involving a generalization sublime in its scope, 
suggested itself to the mind of Newton twenty years 
before the publication of his great work. The most 
familiar of all physical facts is the tendency of heavy 
bodies unsupported to fall to the earth. This tendency 
may be reasonably formulated as a mutual attraction 
between the earth and those bodies. In Newton's 
mind, then, arose the question. May not this same force 
which is thus manifested on the earth be the force 
which holds the planets in their orbits ? But a brilliant 
conjecture is of little importance in the history of sci- 
ence, unless it can be tested and verified. To that task 
Newton addressed himself. The moon was known to 
be distant from the earth about sixty times the earth's 
radius. It was possible then to estimate what would 
be the intensity of terrestrial gravitation at the dis- 

30 



Universal Gravitation 

tance of the moon. Knowing by experiment how far 
a body near the earth falls in a second or in a minute, 
a mathematician could calculate how far a body at the 
distance of the moon ought to fall in a second or in a 




Fig. 3. — The fall of the moon. In passing from ui to in' , the moon 
falls through the distance i7ib or am' . 

minute in obedience to the same force. According to 
the primary laws of motion, a moving body not sub- 
ject to an external force will continue to move in a 
straight line and with uniform velocity. The moon, 

31 



The Extension of the Universe in Space 

then, starting from any point in its orbit, should 
move in the direction of a tangent, unless acted up- 
on by some force drawing it to the earth. The dis- 
tance, then to which the arc of the orbit has diverged 
from the tangent, after the lapse of a minute, or 
any other definite interval of time, will be the 
distance through which the moon has fallen. New- 
ton accordingly determined that, if the moon was 
drawn toward the earth by the same force by which 
heavy bodies fall, and if that force varied according to 
the law of inverse squares, the moon ought to fall 
somewhat more than fifteen feet in one minute. The 
study of the actual positions of the moon showed, how- 
ever, a fall of only thirteen feet per minute. The dis- 
crepancy was too great to pass unnoticed, though the 
two magnitudes were sufficiently near to equality to 
suggest the hope that the discrepancy might yet be ex- 
plained, and the magnificent hypothesis find its verifi- 
cation. Newton laid aside the work, and waited for 
more light. In due season the light came. Newton's 
estimate of the length of the earth's radius was based 
upon a determination of 60 miles for the length of a 
degree of a great circle of the earth. That estimate is 
now known to be considerably too small. In 1669 and 
1670 Picard made a more accurate measurement of a 
meridian arc than had before been made, but not until 
several years later did Newton become aware of the re- 
sults of that measurement. The age of daily newspa- 
pers and weekly scientific journals had not then arrived. 
Picard's determination made the radius of the earth 

32 



Law of Gravitation Verified 

about 500 miles longer than Newton had supposed. 
The distance of the moon, which was known to be about 
sixty times the earth's radius, and the dimensions of 
the moon's orbit, were of course increased in the same 
ratio. Reviewing his calculations in the light of this 
new knowledge as to the distance of the moon, New- 
ton found the distance between the orbit and its tan- 
gent to correspond with the theory. Thus was verified 
the magnificent conjecture which identified the force 
that holds the planets in their orbits with the force 
whose effect is seen in the familiar phenomenon of the 
fall of heavy bodies to the earth; and thus was de- 
veloped the far-reaching induction of universal gravi- 
tation — a mutual attraction subsisting between all par- 
ticles and all masses of matter, varying directly as the 
products of the masses, and inversely as the squares 
of the distances.* 

Newton's discovery of universal gravitation has 
a twofold significance in the history of science. It 
was the completion and culmination of that series 
of astronomical discoveries by which the relative posi- 

* It is well, however, at this point to notice that the Newtonian conception 
of universal gravitation g:ives no really causal explanation of the movements of 
the planets, since we know nothing of the nature of the supposed force, (See 
page 323.) If we strip from the connotation of the word " force" the meta- 
physical notion of causation, and define force not as the cause of motion or of 
change of motion, but as the "product of mass into acceleration " (Pearson, 
Grammar of Science^ 2d editirm, p. 304), the Newtonian conception of planet- 
ary movement becomes as purely mathematical as the Keplerian. "Whether, 
with Kepler, the form of the orbit of a planet and the velocity at each point is 
defined, or, with Newton, the force at each point, both are really only differ- 
ent methods of describing the facts ; and Newton's merit is only the discovery 
that the description of the motion of the celestial bodies is especially simple if 
the second differential of their coordinates in respect of time is given." Boltz- 
niann. On the Methods of Theoretical Physics, in Lottdon, Edinburgh, and 
Dublin Philosophical Magazine, 5th series, vol. xxxvi, p. 40; cited in Ward, 
Naturalism and Agnosticism, vol. i, p. 81. 

33 



The Extension of the Universe in Space 

tions and movements of the heavenly bodies were de- 
termined. It was also the beginning of a series of 
discoveries by which has been developed the most com- 
prehensive and most important of all the characteristic 
ideas of science, the idea of the unity of the universe. 
The progress of astronomical science led to the rec- 
ognition of a magnitude of the solar system vastly 
greater than had been imagined. The sun became, in- 
stead of a mere lantern carried around the earth, an 
orb of colossal size situated at an immense distance 
from the earth. In later times the discovery of the 
planets Uranus and Neptune, visible only to the tele- 
scope, and far more distant from the sun than any of 
those known to the ancients, has vastly extended the 
magnitude of the solar system. But it early became 
manifest that the dimensions of the solar system are 
utterly insignificant in comparison with the dimensions 
of the whole universe. The diameter of the earth's orbit 
is about 186,000,000 miles. It was a natural sugges- 
tion that so extensive a movement of the earth itself 
should make a perceptible change in the direction of 
the stars. It was, however, impossible, with the means 
that were available for observational astronomy in 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to prove any 
change in the apparent direction of a star as viewed, at 
an interval of six months, from opposite sides of the 
earth's orbit. If the lines drawn to a star from the 
extremities of a base line of about 186,000,000 miles 
are sensibly parallel, that star must be distant indeed. 
It was not until the close of the first third of the 

34 



Distance of the Stars 

nineteenth century that astronomical observation had 
become so refined as to render possible a reliable deter- 
mination of the value of the angle between the direc- 
tions of a star as viewed from opposite sides of the 
earth's orbit — in technical language, the annual par- 
allax of the star. Before the close of that century ap- 
proximate determinations were made of the distances 
of a considerable number of the brightest and pre- 
sumably nearest of the fixed ^tars. The nearest of 
these bodies has been shown to be distant from the 
earth more than 270,000 times the distance of the sun. 
The great majority of the stars are so immensely dis- 
tant that the most exquisite refinements of measure- 
ment fail to detect any change in their direction. 

As the universe grows larger to human thought, the 
earth grows relatively smaller. It has become a mere 
speck in the infinite vastness of the universe. 

The series of great astronomical discoveries whose 
history we have sketched was not achieved without 
theological opposition. Before the epoch of great 
maritime discoveries, the belief in the sphericity of the 
earth had been tolerated in the church, but had been 
regarded with some suspicion as not strictly orthodox. 
The Copernican doctrine of the revolution of the earth 
around the sun was regarded in many quarters as flatly 
contradictory to the Bible, and therefore destructive 
of Christian faith. For surely it was written, "Thou 
hast established the earth, and it abideth"* ; and, the 
sun ''is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, 

* Psalm cxix, 90. 

35 



The Extension of the Universe in Space 

and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race."* And 
when Newton announced his discovery of universal 
gravitation, he was charged in some quarters with 
essential atheism in placing a mathematical formula 
instead of the power of God in supreme control over 
the universe. 

It lies aside from our purpose to enter into any de- 
tails of the history of persecution and conflict. The 
history of the persecution of Galileo is a shameful 
story; yet our sympathy with "the starry Galileo and 
his woes" must always be moderated by the fact that 
his character as a man was far less noble than his 
character as a scientist. He was conspicuously want- 
ing in those characteristics of tender consideration for 
the opinions of others and steadfast loyalty to his own 
convictions which mark the character of the ideal re- 
former. How far his persecutions were the conse- 
quence of his own infelicities of temper we need not 
specifically inquire. It is worth while to notice in pass- 
ing that all the astronomers whose names we have 
had occasion to mention, from Copernicus to Newton, 
were Christians. Whatever conflict there was, was 
between Christians and Christians, not between Chris- 
tians and pagans or atheists. f Copernicus was a de- 
vout and faithful parish priest, whose time and thought 
and care were mainly given to his humble flock. There 
are few more pathetic pictures in the history of science 
than that of the aged priest on his deathbed receiving 

* Psalm xix, 5. 

t Fisher, Grozmds of Theistic and Christian Beliefs revised edition, p. 439. 

■ 36 



Founders of New Astronomy were Christians 

the first printed copy of the book which was the be- 
ginning of a new era in human thought, but which he 
himself in the last m.oments of life could not open, and 
expressing his Christian resignation in the words of 
Simeon, "Nunc dimittis scrvum tmuii, dominc." The 
spirit of Kepler was profoundly religious, and the 
oft-quoted words which he uttered when the elliptic 
orbits of the planets shaped themselves before his men- 
tal vision, ''O God, I think thy thoughts after thee," 
are worthy to be the motto of devout students in 
every age. Galileo, though showing by no means the 
highest moral tone, was a professed believer in Chris- 
tianity. There were not wanting in high places in the 
hierarchy of Rome men of enlightened spirit like Car- 
dinal Baronius, the friend of Galileo, who is credited 
with the epigram-matic statement that the Bible was 
given to teach us how to go to heaven, not to teach 
us how the heavens go. Had all ecclesiastics then 
and in later ages been equally wise and tolerant, many 
disgraceful chapters in the history of the church might 
have been left unwritten. 

But, while it Is not our task to enter into details 
of the history of conflict and persecution, it is our duty 
to inquire what was the ultimate effect of these scien- 
tific discoveries upon Christian faith. What changes 
were made in theological beliefs ? What did the church 
learn from these great discoveries? 

The revelation of the measureless vastness of the 
universe certainly gives a new intensity of meaning to 
the old question of the Psalmist: *'When I consider 

37 



The Extension of the Universe in Space 

thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and 
the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that 
thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou 
visitest him?" And yet, after all, the answer to that 
question is not materially changed. If we believe in 
a God of infinite wisdom and infinite love, we can see 
no reason why he may not be duly thoughtful of the 
interests of every one of his creatures, though his em- 
pire be more vast than men had dreamed, and though 
the number of its citizens can be reckoned in no human 
census. We suffered no lack of love and care from 
our parents, when our younger brothers or sisters were 
born into our homes. We can trust the love and provi- 
dence of the Heavenly Father, though the number of 
his children, in his home of many mansions, be vaster 
than we had dreamed. 

One thing which the church learned from these dis- 
coveries was , that in the Bible the phenomena of na- 
ture are spoken of, not in the language of science, 
but in terms of purely phenomenal description. The 
church, indeed, did not learn this lesson as thoroughly 
as it ought to have learned it, and did not adhere to it 
consistently in later times. Had it done so, some of 
the later so-called conflicts of science and religion need 
never have occurred. Yet it was true, in general, that 
the church did learn from these astronomical discov- 
eries to recognize that, in regard to the affairs of na- 
ture, the Biblical writers spoke the language of com- 
mon life and not the language of science; and, when 
that simple truth was recognized, of course there was 

38 



The Extension of the Universe in Time 

no conflict between the Copernican astronomy and the 
BibHcal statements of the sun's daily race and the es- 
tabHshment of the earth forever. 

The church might well have learned that the lan- 
guage of the Bible in regard to other subjects than the 
facts of nature is not technical. The writers of the 
Bible were no more writing systematic treatises on 
theology and psychology and ethics, than they were 
writing systematic treatises on astronomy; and, if 
the church could only have learned that the language 
of the Bible was never technical, but always the lan- 
guage of common life, it would have escaped a good 
deal of pernicious and unsound theology. 

The most Important fact in connection with these 
astronomical discoveries, in the sphere of religious 
thought, was the simple fact that Christianity did sur- 
vive. Beliefs hallowed by the tradition of ages and 
so associated with Christian doctrine as to be consid- 
ered integral parts of Christianity, were shown to be 
false, and yet Christianity survived. Men's minds 
adjusted themselves to the new beliefs, and the es- 
sential doctrines of Christianity appeared no less 
reasonable, and its stores of moral inspiration and 
comfort no less precious; and this history of the 
survival and unimpaired vitality of Christian faith 
and Christian life in the change of scientific opin- 
ion had its lessons for future ages. In later times, 
when science said that the universe, instead of 
being created in six days six thousand years ago, 
stretched back through time as measureless as the as- 

39 



The Extension of the Universe in Space 

tronomical spaces, or when science said that the uni- 
verse had reached its present condition, not by a series 
of isolated creative fiats, but by a continuous evolution, 
thoughtless men grew merry over the supposed de- 
struction of Christianity, good men grew pale with 
terror lest the faith which had been the light of the 
world should go out in darkness, but wise men said 
that it would be in the eighteenth or the nineteenth 
century as it was in the sixteenth. Christianity sur- 
vived with unimpaired vigor when the solid earth on 
which it had stood was whirled away from beneath its 
feet. It is not likely to be destroyed by the discoveries 
of our age or of any age. 

40 



Ceaseless Change 



IL — The Extension of the Universe in Time * 

No one can attentively observe the phenomena pre- 
sented by almost any part of the earth's surface with- 
out recognizing the fact of ceaseless change. In all 
parts of the world where winters are cold enough for 
extensive frost work, a pile of rock fragments may 
be found at the foot of every cliff, often burying the 
cliff for half or more than half of its height. These 
fragments have evidently fallen from the summit, 
from which they have been shivered by the expansion 
of freezing water in the cracks of the rock. Most 
rivers are seen to be more or less turbid with the sedi- 
ment which they are carrying, and thus on slight re- 
flection it becomes obvious that the rivers are trans- 
porting the continents seaward. When rivers recede 
into their ordinary channels after their periodical or 
occasional floods, the meadow land which has been 
overflowed is found covered with a film of mud depos- 
ited in the inundation; and thus it is seen that rivers 
have not only a destructive but also a constructive 
effect. On the shore of the ocean, the waves may be 
seen in some places to be tearing rocks to pieces and 
encroaching upon the shore, while in other places they 

*For an admirable sketch of the history of geology from ancient times to 
the early part of the nineteenth century, see Lyell, Principles of Geology, 
ch. ii-iv. See also Geikie, The Founders of Geology. For sketches of the 
more recent progress of geology, see Rice, Twenty-Jive Years of Scientific 
Progress^ and Other Essays ; Le Conte, A Century of Geology, in Popular 
Science Monthly, vol. Ivi. The whole subject is fully treated in von Zitfel, 
History of Geology and Palaeontology. 

41 



The Extension of the Universe in Time 

are depositing sand in beaches and reefs and spits, 
and thus extending the area of the land. In many 
parts of the earth, streams of molten rock are seen 
from time to time to flow forth from the interior and 
to solidify at the surface as sheets of crystalline rock. 
Tremulous movements of the ground are felt from 
time to time, sometimes so insignificant as to be barely 
perceptible, sometimes so violent as to destroy whole 
cities. Not infrequently, after an earthquake, con- 
siderable areas are observed to stand permanently at 
a higher or at a lower level than before. Careful ob- 
servation shows that along many stretches of coast the 
land appears to be rising and emerging from the sea, 
while along other coasts the land appears to be sub- 
siding and the sea encroaching upon it. Thus in va- 
rious ways the idea is obviously suggested to the 
thoughtful observer that the earth is undergoing con- 
tinual change, and that its present condition and as- 
pect are the result of a series of changes which it has 
been experiencing through the ages of the past. Even 
in ancient times the attention of thoughtful men was 
attracted to such evidences of change in the aspect of 
the earth, and several of the Greek philosophers were 
led by such considerations to tolerably sound views in 
regard to many subjects in dynamical geology. In 
this respect Pythagoras is especially to be commended 
among the earlier Greek philosophers, and Aristotle 
among the later ones. 

But the fact of change is easily overlooked by the 
unobservant and the ignorant, because, in general, the 

42 



Geological Changes Generally Slow 

rate of geological change is slow. In most regions 
there is very little change in the aspect of the earth 
during a single lifetime. In communities less migra- 
tory than ours, it often happened that a man lived 
to old age in the same house in which he had been 
born ; and to such a man the aspects of nature around 
his dwelling would be in general substantially the same 
in his old age as in his childhood. In front of the 
house, the old man might see the same river running 
through the same meadow which the child had seen 
threescore years before, and the same hill might rise 
behind the house. And so such expressions as "the 
everlasting hills" became proverbial in common lan- 
guage and in literature. 

"Changeless march the stars above, 

Changeless morn succeeds to even, 
And the everlasting hills 

Changeless watch the changeless heaven. 
See the rivers how they run, 

Changeless, to a changeless sea." 

While the general slowness of geological change 
might easily lead to its being overlooked, there can be 
no doubt that theological prejudices operated strongly 
toward the same end. The Old Testament, which 
Christianity inherited from Judaism, seems to teach 
that the world was made in six days, by a series of 
creative fiats, a few thousand years ago. The belief 
in the supposed authority of that teaching tended to 
deter men from investigation or question in regard to 
the history of the world. It is noteworthy that the 

43 



The Extension of the Universe in Time 

same theological prejudice against geological investi- 
gation has operated among Jews and Mohammedans, 
as among Christians ; and substantially all of scien- 
tific thought since the fall of the Museum of Alexan- 
dria belongs to nations that have been at least nominal 
adherents of these three great religions. 

The beginning of modern investigation and discus- 
sion of geological subjects was in Italy in the earlier 
years of the sixteenth century. Of the many who 
make their pilgrimage to Milan to gaze in reverence 
upon the most majestic face of Christ which human 
art has ever painted, comparatively few know that 
the author of that wondrous painting was not only a 
painter, but a poet, mathematician, engineer, architect, 
and, in fact, well-nigh a universal genius. Among his 
many employments, Leonardo da Vinci was engaged 
in some of the earlier years of the sixteenth century 
in the excavation of extensive canals. The rocks 
through which those excavations were made contained 
a great abundance of fossil shells, and Leonardo was 
one of a number of thoughtful men of that time who 
were sagacious enough to recognize that those fossils 
were evidence of the former presence of a sea teeming 
with marine life, where cultivated fields and populous 
cities had taken its place. But theological prejudices 
stood in the way of the acceptance of an inference that 
seems to us now so simple and obvious, and the ob- 
servations of Leonardo and others were the beginning 
of a controversy which lasted for about three hundred 
years. Not till about the beginning of the nineteenth 

44 ? 



The Meaning of Fossils 

century were the conclusions of the geologists generally 
acknowledged. 

These three hundred years of energetic and often 
bitter controversy may be roughly divided into two not 
very unequal parts. For about a century and a half 
the question mainly discussed was whether the fossils 
found in the rocks were really the remains of animals 
and plants which had once lived on the earth or in the 
sea. The limits of the present discussion will not per- 
mit us to trace that history in detail, nor to set forth 
at length the particular opinions of those who took 
part in the discussion. The views of the opposers of 
geology were in many cases fantastic and absurd. The 
fossils were explained as mere lusus natures — sports of 
nature. Nature must indeed have been a very sportive 
sort of person to indulge in that sort of recreation so 
frequentl}^ Others explained the fossils as being due 
to the influence of the stars, and the stars were so dis- 
tant that it was not easy to disprove any mysterious 
and occult potency which might be attributed to them. 
The fossils, again, were formed by the fermentation 
of a materia pinguis in the earth, though it is needless 
to say that the existence of such fatty matter was a 
purely gratuitous hypothesis. In the latter part of 
the seventeenth century and in most of the eighteenth, 
the question mainly discussed between the geologists 
and their opponents was whether, on the assumption 
that the fossils were really remains of animals and 
plants, the strata containing them might not have been 
all deposited in the Noachian Deluge. According to 

45 



The Extension of the Universe in Time 

the narrative of Genesis, after forty days of rain, the 
waters covered the whole surface of the earth, in- 
cluding the highest mountains, for several months, and 
all terrestrial animals were destroyed excepting those 
which had found refuge with Noah in the ark. Of 
course, the notion seems to us now absurd that accu- 
mulations of strata miles in thickness, bearing in the 
structure of many portions evidences of gradual depo- 
sition in tranquil waters, including manifold alterna- 
tions of different kinds of material, and containing fos- 
sils characteristic of each stratum as definitely sorted 
as in the drawers of a cabinet, could have been de- 
posited in a few months by a tumultuous deluge, even 
on the assumption that there was a universal deluge. 
And it seems strange indeed that it should have re- 
quired more than a century of discussion to dispose of 
such a theory. 

About the beginning of the nineteenth century, we 
find that the obvious inferences which enlightened 
thinkers had drawn from the study of the fossiliferous 
strata three hundred years before, had come to be gen- 
erally accepted, and the foundations had been laid for 
all the leading divisions of geological science. 

Mutton's ''Theory of the Earth," published in the 
Edinburgh Philosophical Transactions in 1788, and 
issued in somewhat enlarged form as an independent 
work in 1795, is recognized as being in an important 
sense the beginning of the modern development of 
dynamical geology. A few sentences from this work 
will clearly indicate its point of view and the spirit in 

46 



HUTTON 

which geological phenomena were treated : 'The ruins 
of an older world are visible in the present structure 
of our planet ; and the strata which now compose our 
continents have been once beneath the sea, and were 
formed out of the waste of pre-existing continents. 
The same forces are still destroying by chemical de- 
composition or mechanical violence even the hardest 
rocks, and transporting materials to the sea, where 
they are spread- out, and form strata analogous to 
those of more ancient date. Though loosely deposited 
along the bottom of the ocean, they become afterwards 
altered and consolidated by volcanic heat, and then 
heaved up, fractured, and contorted." This general 
conception of the agencies of dynamical geology is 
substantially that which has found illustration and con- 
firmation in all the geological study of the nineteenth 
century. More clearly than any previous writer. Hut- 
ton taught the fundamental truth of dynamical geol- 
ogy, that geological effects are to be explained by 
causes now in operation, and not by unknown hy- 
pothetical actions. When a river was seen flowing 
in the bottom of a deep and rocky gorge, instead of 
assuming, with the unthinking multitudes, that the 
gorge had existed unchanged since the creation, or, 
with some of the theologians of his time, that it was 
formed by the violent rending of the rocks in the con- 
vulsions that the earth experienced when it was cursed 
for Adam's sin, Hutton showed that the gorge had been 
formed gradually by the friction of the waters of the 
stream itself, and particularly by the abrasion of the 

47 



The Extension of the Universe in Time 

sand and pebbles which its rapid current swept onward 
toward the sea. While Hutton recognized the destruc- 
tive and constructive action of atmospheric and aque- 
ous agencies, he also recognized, though his knowl- 
edge of them was less complete, agencies of a different 
sort. He held rightly that many of the crystalline 
rocks had been formed by solidification from a state 
of fusion like the lavas of volcanoes, and he held to 
the agency of subterranean forces in the disturbances 
of the crust of the globe. While the geological theo- 
rizing of later time has been largely an expansion and 
development of the ideas of Hutton, we shall see here- 
after that in one important respect his views were 
seriously erroneous, and have been corrected by larger 
knowledge and maturer thought. 

While Hutton was laying the foundations of dy- 
namical geology, other geologists were making a begin- 
ning in other lines of geological investigation. It was 
in 1790 that William Smith published his "Tabular 
View of the British Strata," and in 181 5 that he pub- 
lished his geological map of England. This was the 
first example of the detailed stratigraphical survey of 
a considerable region of country. It may reasonably 
be regarded as a providential arrangement in the his- 
tory of science that the first extensive stratigraphical 
study should have been in England. There is perhaps 
no other region in the world where the conditions are 
so favorable for the beginning of that branch of geo- 
logical study. In a comparatively small area, and in 
a country whose high state of civilization made roads 

48 



William Smith 

and other facilities of travel as good as could be found 
anywhere, almost the whole series of fossiliferous 
strata, from the lowest to the highest, is displayed in 
a fashion remarkably simple. A large part of the se- 
ries of geological formations extend in roughly par- 
allel bands across the country from northeast to south- 
west, each dipping southeastward under the next later 
formation; so that the traveler who journeys from 
the north of Wales southeastward across the island, 
traverses in regular succession almost the whole se- 
ries. Smith's study of the succession of the English 
formations and the characteristic fossils by which each 
formation was marked, became a standard with which 
the rocks of other countries could be compared, in 
tracing the chronological succession of geological 
events throughout the world. 

William Smith w-as not a zoologist. He valued fos- 
sils simply as labels by which the different formations 
in the geological series could be identified; and pre- 
cisely that mode of study of the fossils is perfectly 
legitimate, and must always be important to the geol- 
ogist. The characteristic fossils are the marks by 
which the strata of different ages are to be distin- 
guished. But there is a zoological and botanical, as 
well as a geological, use of fossils. Fossils are not 
only marks of the different geological formations ; they 
are records of the history of life, and are therefore 
of profound significance in biological science. The be- 
ginning of the study of fossils from the standpoint of 
the biologist was made by Georges Cuvier. Before 

49 



The Extension of the Universe in Time 

turning his attention to the study of fossils, Cuvier had 
made himself eminent as a zoologist and comparative 
anatomist. He was thoroughly familiar with the 
structure of both vertebrate and invertebrate animals. 
In his study of living animals, he had learned to rec- 
ognize the correlations that subsist between different 
parts of an organism, whereby, from the knowledge 
of certain parts, inferences more or less probable may 
be drawn in regard to the structure of other parts of 
the body. His knowledge of comparative anatomy en- 
abled him to interpret the significance of more or less 
fragmentary fossil skeletons. Before his time scarcely 
any attempt had been made to place the animals 
and plants whose fossil remains were found in the 
rocks in any definite relation to the zoological and 
botanical classifications derived from the study of liv- 
ing organisms. There had been the long discussion 
as to whether the fossils were really remains of living 
beings or not; and William Smith and other geol- 
ogists had shown that fossils could be used as a means 
of recognition of particular formations in the geolog- 
ical series. But Cuvier showed that the animals and 
plants represented by fossils could be classified zoolog- 
ically and botanically and assigned to their place in 
the systematic series. It was in 1796 that he gave the 
first illustration of this mode of study of fossils in his 
research on the huge fossil bones found in Siberia, be- 
longing to the mammoth (Elephas primigenhis) , 
which, as we now know, ranged over most of northern 
Asia and Europe and North America. The study of 

50 



CUVIER 

these fossil bones showed that they were truly the 
bones of an elephant, yet not the bones of either the 
Indian or the African species of elephant. The bones 
accordingly represented an extinct species, yet one so 
closely related to well-known living species that it 
could be classed in the same genus. In 1804, he pub- 
lished the first of his classical series of memoirs on 
the fossils of the Paris Basin. His residence in Paris 
was perhaps as providential in its influence upon the 
history of science as William Smith's residence in Eng- 
land, for in the immediate vicinity of Paris were quar- 
ries of soft and easily worked rock abounding in the 
bones of mammals. The application of the new 
method of study showed these bones to be of extinct 
species and even of extinct genera, but yet to have such 
relations to the structures of living mammals that they 
could be arranged in the same orders. These re- 
searches, then, were the foundation of the science of 
paleontology. 

In one important respect the views of all the great 
geologists of the beginning of the nineteenth century 
were radically in error. They looked upon the his- 
tory of the world, not as a continuous development 
under the operation of uniform law^s, but as a discon- 
tinuous series of periods of gradual change, alternating 
with epochs of sudden and catastrophic change. They 
are often spoken of as the catastrophic school of geol- 
ogists. Hutton, for instance, clearly understood the 
processes of degradation of continents by the action 
of the atmosphere, water, and ice ; but his knowledge 

51 



The Extension of the Universe in Time 

of hypogene agencies was so imperfect that he saw no 
way in which continents conld be elevated by the ac- 
tion of any forces known to him to be now in operation. 
Accordingly he was compelled to believe that from 
time to time continents were upheaved by some utterly 
inexphcable catastrophe, after which ensued a long 
period of relative stability, in which the surface of the 
continents was slowly degraded by the intelligible 
processes of weathering and erosion. The paleon- 
tologists in like manner accounted for the change in 
the fauna and flora indicated by the fossil contents of 
successive series of strata, by the supposition of epochs 
of universal extermination, each of which was fol- 
lowed by the creation of a new fauna and flora. The 
two views, of course, naturally fitted together, for it 
could easily be supposed that the violent convulsions 
w4iich the physical geologists were compelled to as- 
sume, were the occasion of the universal extermina- 
tions of animals and plants of which the paleontologists 
seemed to find evidence. 

The contrast between the old and the new views in 
geology is illustrated in the interpretation of the phe- 
nomenon of unconformable strata. In many cases it 
is observed that a series of strata is tilted up to a more 
or less steep inclination, and that, upon their edges, 
which have been planed ofif to an approximately hori- 
zontal surface, there rests a later series of nearly hori- 
zontal strata. If the strata in such cases are fossilifer- 
ous, it is usually observed that the fauna and flora 
represented in the upper series of strata differ very 

52 



Unconformable Strata 




Fig. 4.— Wall of Grand Canon of the Colorado River. Uncon- 
formability is seen at two levels. From Powell's " Explo- 
ration of the Colorado River." 

53 



The Extension of the Universe in Time 

widely from those represented in the lower. The in- 
terpretation of the facts according to the older geology 
would be that the interval between the deposition of 
the two sets of strata was marked by an epoch of con- 
vulsion and universal extermination. The modern in- 
terpretation would be that, after the deposition of the 
lower series of strata, there ensued an elevation of the 
earth's crust in that vicinity, which may have been 
somewhat rapid or very slow, but was not violent or 
convulsional, and that the region thus elevated re- 
mained above the water level long enough for the rocks 
to be extensively eroded. Later came a subsidence of 
the area in question; and, as the district came to be 
depressed below the water level, it came to be covered 
by a new series of horizontal strata. Neither the move- 
ment of elevation nor the subsequent movement of sub- 
sidence had the character attributed to the catastrophes 
of the older geology ; and between the two a period of 
greater or less length intervened, in which the region 
was gradually degraded by the agencies of air and 
water. In like manner, the great change in the species 
of animals and plants represented in the two series of 
strata is explained, not by the supposition of an ex- 
termination and a new creation, but by the recognition 
of the long period of unrecorded time in w4iich no 
strata were deposited in that locality because the re- 
gion was above the water level. During that time new 
species may have been formed by processes of evolu- 
tion, and some species may have migrated into the 
region in question, and other species may have mi- 

54 



The Antiquity of Man 

grated away from the region, or may have gradually 
become extinct. The movements of elevation and sub- 
sidence, of which the very fact of unconformability is 
evidence, would naturally open some routes of migra- 
tion and close other routes. As a result of these proc- 
esses of evolution and migration continued through 
an indefinite period of unrecorded time, a complete or 
nearly complete change in fauna and flora might well 
be effected without any epoch of universal extermina- 
tion and new creation. But the history of the downfall 
of catastrophism and the rise of the new geology will 
be considered more fully in connection with the dis- 
cussion of evolution.* 

The Antiquity of Man 

The most important general result of geological in- 
vestigation, at the stage which had been reached in the 
early years of the nineteenth century, was the recog- 
nition of the very considerable antiquity of the earth. 
The present physical condition of the earth was sup- 
posed to have been reached as a result of a long se- 
ries of alternating epochs of catastrophe and gradual 
change. The existing fauna and flora formed the last 
of a long series of successive creations. Man belonged 
to the last of these creations. He was supposed to have 
appeared in connection with the existing fauna and 
flora. While the earth, then, was very ancient, man 
was relatively modern. Nothing indeed was known 
which contradicted the notion that the antiquity of 

* See page 153. 

55 



The Antiquity of Man 

man might be measured by the few thousand years of 
the traditional chronology. 

The accepted doctrine of the very recent advent of 
man was disturbed by the discovery of human bones 
and human implements associated with remains of ani- 
mals now extinct. This discovery clearly contradicted 
the notion, then universally accepted by geologists, that 
man had been introduced subsequently to the latest 
epoch of catastrophe and extermination, and had never, 
therefore, coexisted with organisms now extinct. The 
first observations of importance bearing upon the sub- 
ject in question were made by Schmerling, in the ex- 
ploration of numerous caves in the vicinity of Liege 
in Belgium. In the cave breccias and stalagmite floors 
he found human bones and implements associated with 
the bones of the cave bear, the cave hyena, the woolly 
rhinoceros, and the mammoth or woolly elephant, 
which are now altogether extinct, and with the bones 
of the reindeer, which is now extinct in Belgium, 
though surviving in regions farther north. Schmer- 
ling's researches were published in 1833 ^^^ i834j 
but his inference of the actual coexistence of man with 
these extinct animals was so strongly opposed to the 
preconceived opinions, not only of laymen and of theo- 
logians, but also of geologists, that his memoir re- 
ceived scarcely any consideration. A few years later, 
in 1847, Boucher de Perthes published an account of 
his researches in the alluvial gravels on the banks of 
the River Somme in northern France. These gravels 
were a deposit of a very different sort from the breccias 

56 



Coexistence of Man and Extinct Animals 

and stalagmites of the Belgian caves, but they revealed 
the same significant fact of the coexistence of human 
relics with the bones of extinct species of animals. 
The researches of Boucher de Perthes would probably 
have been treated, as those of Schmerling had been 
treated, with undeserved and persistent neglect, had 
it not been that in 1858 and 1859 the valley of the 
Somme was visited by three of the most eminent Eng- 
lish geologists. Falconer, Prestwich, and Lyell. When 
these high authorities gave their concordant testimony 
to the accuracy of the observations and to the sound- 
ness of the inferences of Boucher de Perthes, the mat- 
ter could no longer be ignored. Pi 1863, the subject 
was first brought to the attention of the general public 
by the publication of Lyell's ''Geological Evidences of 
the Antiquity of Man." A condensed statement of the 
evidence was given on the cover of that book, in the 
embossed figures of a flint spear-head and a tooth of 
the mammoth.* 

But so contrary to prevalent beliefs was the co- 
existence of man with these extinct animals that the 
conclusion was not to be admitted until every possible 
alternative hypothesis had been thoroughly tested. In 
the first place, the question was raised, were the sup- 
posed implements really of human workmanship? It 
is noteworthy that even to the present time very few 
human bones of very great antiquity have been found. 
The fact is not surprising when we reflect that human 

*For an account of these and other finds of relics of ancient man, more 
concise than that of Lyell, see Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock), Prehistoric 
Times. 

57 



The Antiquity of Man 

bodies are seldom left in situations where they can 
readily be preserved as fossils. Fossils occur chiefly in 
deposits formed under the waters of river, lake, or sea. 
In the majority of cases, savage and civilized men alike 
dispose of their dead by burial in porous soil, where 
even the bones soon crumble and disappear, or by cre- 
mation. Flint implements, on the other hand, are likely 
to be lost at the margin of streams and lakes, and 
are well-nigh imperishable even when left on dry land. 
Moreover, they have been produced in immense num- 
bers. But, when the supposed implements of flint were 
discovered in localities where no human bones oc- 
curred, there was naturally some degree of suspicion 
as to the truly artificial character of the supposed relics. 
It is, of course, obvious that purely accidental frac- 
tures may occasionally shape a stone into a form much 
resembling some of the rude implements fashioned by 
savage art. But, as the finds of such implements in- 
creased in number, and as their forms came to be 
critically studied and compared with those made by 
savages in various parts of the earth, it came to be 
universally conceded that they were, beyond reasonable 
doubt, products of human manufacture. 

A second question which was naturally raised was 
whether these rehcs were truly contemporaneous with 
the deposits in which they were found. Unconsoli- 
dated deposits like gravel beds are very readily dis- 
turbed by various natural events, such as the occasional 
blowing over of trees whose roots have penetrated to 
a considerable depth below the surface, or by the work 

58 



The Evidence Cri-ticized 

of man; so that implements and other things which 
have been dropped on the surface may by accident or 
by fraudulent design find their way into the interior 
of the deposit, and may therefore seem to be contem- 
poraneous with it. In the case of the gravels of the 
Somme, the English geologists already mentioned had 
the satisfaction of seeing flint implements taken out of 
the gravel at a considerable depth below the surface, 
where it appeared to them certain that there had been 
no disturbance. In the case of implements found be- 
neath the stalagmite crust on the floor of a cave, such a 
question could scarcely be raised. 

A third question which was naturally and rightly 
raised was whether the bones of the extinct animals 
were really contemporaneous with the deposits in 
which they were found. It is sometimes the case, in 
the disintegration of a fossiliferous rock, that the fos- 
sils are transported by the agency of running water 
just as other fragments of the rock might be, and so 
come to be included as tonstituent parts of a newly 
formed rock. Could it be that the bones of extinct 
animals had been thus derived from earlier fossiliferous 
formations? It was not long before that question 
found its conclusive answer. In a cave at Brixham in 
England was found associated with flint implements 
the skeleton of the hind leg of a cave bear, with the 
bones all in their normal position, including even the 
patella. Of course it was obvious that the bear's leg 
was buried in the situation in which it was found, 
while the bones were still fastened together by their 

59 



The Antiquity of Man 

ligaments. Their derivation from some older fossil- 
iferous stratum was utterly impossible. If possible, 
a still more conclusive answer to this question was 
found in the discovery, in the cave of La Madeleine 
in southern France, of a slab of ivory with a rude 
picture of the hairy elephant scratched upon it with 
some flint tool (see Fig. 5). The drawing is rude, 
but not inartistic, and the animal which is intended to 
be represented is utterly unmistakable. It is certain 
that that picture was not reconstructed from scattered 
bones and teeth. The artist had unquestionably seen 
the elephant alive. 

The effect of investigation was thus to establish be- 
yond reasonable doubt the coexistence of man with 
the mammoth and other extinct mammals. But what 
does that fact prove? Does it prove that man com- 
menced to exist earlier than had been supposed, or that 
some of these extinct animals survived to a later date 
than had been supposed ? A fossil does not, like a coin, 
bear a definite date inscribed upon it ; and our estimate 
of the anticjuity of the human remains and of the bones 
of extinct mammalia associated with them must be 
based upon a consideration of a variety of evidence, 
archaeological, paleontological, and geological. 

Long before the geological discoveries which started 
the discussion on the anticjuity of man, archaeologists 
had noticed that the prehistoric relics of man and his 
works in Europe represented three different stages of 
culture, which were doubtless in a general way con- 
secutive, though the periods represented by these stages 

60 



Paleolithic Picture of Mammoth 




The Antiquity of Man 

of culture doubtless overlapped to some extent. 
Among the prehistoric relics of latest date are in- 
cluded implements of iron, showing that they be- 
long to a period subsequent to the invention of proc- 
esses for the reduction and manufacture of that metal. 
In another group of prehistoric finds, implements of 
bronze are present, while iron implements are alto- 
gether absent. These belong in general to an earlier 
date, for the ores of copper and tin, though much less 
abundant than those of iron, are much more easily 
recognized, and require much less skill for their re- 
duction. In a still older group of relics, there are 
implements of stone, and of bone, ivory, and similar 
materials, but metals are altogether absent. The pe- 
riods corresponding to these stages of culture were 
called by archaeologists, respectively, the age of iron, 
the age of bronze, and the age of stone. It is needless 
to say that these stages of culture correspond to chron- 
ological divisions only within the limits of some one 
particular district of country. Centuries after the Eu- 
ropean populations had entered upon the iron age, the 
inhabitants of North America and of Australia were 
still in the stone age. 

When the remains of man associated with the bones 
of extinct mammals were brought to light, it was ob- 
vious, of course, that they belonged to the stone age, 
but it was equally obvious that they represented a 
stage of culture vastly lower than that indicated by the 
later relics of the stone age. It became obvious, in 
fact, that the stages of culture represented by the ear- 

62 



Ne:olithic and Paleolithic Man 

liest and the latest relics of the stone age differed more 
widely from each other than that of the later stone 
age differed from that of the age of bronze. It be- 
came necessary, then, to divide the stone age into two 
periods, which were named appropriately the neolithic 
and the paleolithic — the new stone age and the old 




Fig. 6. — Paleolithic implements. From Evans* "Ancient Stone 
Implements of Great Britain." 

stone age. Paleolithic men made implements of stone 
only by chipping (see Fig. 6). In those localities 
which probably represent the earliest part of the pale- 
olithic age, the implements are generally of very rude 
form. In later paleolithic time more skill had been 
developed, and some of the implements were most 
artistically shaped, but the process was essentially 
the same. Neolithic men had found that chisels and 

63 



The Antiquity of Man 



gouges and similar implements could be shaped to a 
nicer and more uniform edge by grinding than by chip- 
ping, and accordingly such implements in neolithic 
time were ground and polished (see Fig. 7). Time 

was not as precious in the 
stone age as in the age of 
railroads and telegraphs ; 
but time was worth some- 
thing even to neolithic man, 
and he did not waste time 





Fig. 7. — Neolithic implements. From Evans' "Ancient Stone 
Implements of Great Britain." 

64 



Neolithic Man an Invader 

in grinding arrow-heads and spear-heads and other 
implements for which a smooth and uniform edge was 
not required. He retained the art of chipping stone 
which had been characteristic of paleoHthic man, while 
adding to it the art of grinding stone. Paleolithic man 
had neither pottery nor textile fabrics; neolithic man 
had both. Paleolithic man was a hunter and fisher. 
His only food, aside from the animals which he caught, 
was afforded by the spontaneous products of the earth. 
Neolithic man had developed the art of agriculture. 
Paleolithic man had no domestic animals. In the ear- 
liest neolithic finds the bones of the dog are so asso- 
ciated with human remains as to indicate that the dog 
had already been domesticated. In later neolithic time 
it appears that horses, cattle, sheep, and goats, and per- 
haps also pigs, were added to the possessions of man. 
There is, then, a vast interval in the scale of culture 
between paleolithic man, with only chipped stone, and 
destitute of pottery, textiles, agriculture, and domestic 
animals, on the one hand; and neolithic man, on the 
other, using both chipped stone and polished stone for 
his various implements, and possessing pottery, textiles, 
agriculture, and domestic animals. 

If neolithic men in Europe were the improved de- 
scendants of paleolithic men, the difference in their 
stage of culture would doubtless indicate a very con- 
siderable lapse of time; but that was probably not the 
case. It is probable that neolithic man in Europe was 
an invader, who dispossessed paleolithic man of the 
territory. The later paleolithic men had developed a 

65 



The Antiquity of Man 

remarkable artistic taste, as is shown by their rude, 
but often very expressive, pictures of various animals 
scratched on pieces of bone or ivory.* Neolithic man, 
though in a far higher stage of general culture, was 
destitute of this artistic taste. Neolithic man has left 
us no pictures. If the change from the paleolithic to 
the neolithic stage represented the advance of a single 
people in civilization, it w^ould be difficult to account 
for the loss of the artistic power which had been de- 
veloped ; but, if paleolithic men were exterminated by 
an invading race, the phenomenon would be perfectly 
intelligible. On the supposition that neolithic men 
were invaders who conquered and nearly exterminated 
the paleolithic - race, the difference in their stages of 
culture gives no clear indication as to the chronology. 
The consideration of the remains of animals asso- 
ciated with relics of paleolithic and of neolithic men, 
respectively, shows that the two races in Europe be- 
longed to distinct periods in the paleontological series. 
Paleolithic man was associated with numerous mam- 
mals now totally extinct, as the cave bear, the cave 
lion, the cave hyena, the woolly elephant, and the 
woolly rhinoceros, and with other animals, as the rein- 
deer, that are extinct in the parts of Europe where 
these relics have been found, though still surviving in 
regions much farther north. The remains of neolithic 
man, on the contrary, are found associated almost 
exclusively with mammals that still survive in the same 
regions. The only mammals now extinct whose fossil 

* See Fig. 5, page 61. 

66 



The Glacial Period 

remains are ever associated with relics of neolithic 
man, are the Irish elk, and the wild ox, or urus (Bos 
primi genius). The latter still roamed in great herds 
in Germany in the time of Julius Caesar, and its de- 
scendants are probably still represented in some breeds 
of domestic cattle. It may then be fairly said that the 
Irish elk is the only mammal belonging to the more 
ancient fauna that survived into neolithic times. Ex- 
tensive changes in the fauna of a region, by the proc- 
esses of extinction, evolution, and migration, must be 
supposed to occupy considerable time ; and the paleon- 
tological evidence must therefore be considered to in- 
dicate a considerable antiquity for paleolithic man. 

The history of man may be further correlated with 
important events in the physical history of the globe. 
In times geologically recent occurred the remarkable 
episode called the Glacial period."^' There is difference 
of opinion in regard to the cause of this remarkable 
phase of geological history, but there is no difference 
of opinion in regard to the principal effects. The cli- 
mate, at least of large areas in Europe and in North 
America, became somewhat colder than it is at present. 
In mountain regions where now glaciers are found in 
the higher valleys, those glaciers increased enormously 
in size, so that they extended far out upon the lowlands 
bordering the mountains. In the more northern 
parts of the area in question, glaciers were formed 
even in regions which, though somewhat elevated, can- 
not strictly be called mountainous. The mountains of 

* See Geikie, The Great Ice Age ; Geikie, Prehistoric Europe. 

67 



The Antiquity of Man 

Scandinavia became the center of a vast ice sheet, 
which extended southwestward over Great Britain, ex- 
cepting a Httle tract in its southwestern corner, south- 
ward over the lowlands of Holland and northern 
Germany, and southeastward over the plains of Rus- 
sia, blending at its extreme eastern margin with 
the ice sheet which covered the northern part 
of the Ural Mountains. In North America, the high- 
lands south of Hudson Bay and between that bay and 
the St. Lawrence River became the center of an ice 
sheet still more vast, which covered most of the Do- 
minion of Canada and the northeastern United States, 
extending at one point even a little south of the Ohio 
River, and blending in the west with the ice mantle 
that covered the northern part of the Rocky Moun- 
tains. These great areas must have been in substan- 
tially the same condition as Greenland and the Ant- 
arctic Continent at the present time. At the same time, 
the Alps formed the center of a smaller ice sheet which 
extended far over the plains of northern Italy, southern 
Germany, and eastern France. Local development of 
glaciers is indicated in the Pyrenees, the Caucasus, and 
the Himalayas, as well as in the Sierra Nevada and 
other parts of the western Cordillera in the United 
States. The formation of continental ice sheets and 
the increase in the extent of glaciers In mountain re- 
gions must have been a gradual process. For a long 
series of years, the snow-fall of each winter slightly 
exceeded the summer melting, and so the snow accu- 
mulated till, little by little, the vast mantles of ice were 

68 



Glacial and Interglacial Epochs 

formed. The disappearance of the ice sheets was grad- 
ual, like their formation. Year after year the summer 
melting gained a little upon the winter snow-fall, and 
the edges of the glaciers receded. 

But the more recent investigations of the phenomena 
of the Glacial period indicate that the history is more 
complex than is implied in what has been already said. 
The glaciers advanced and receded, not once, but sev- 
eral times. In the long course of time included in the 
Glacial period, there were alternations of milder and 
more severe climate, causing corresponding oscillations 
in the area of the ice sheets. There is difference of 
opinion as to the extent of these oscillations, and 
the amount of territory which was left uncovered 
from time to time by the recession of the ice; but 
in regard to the general fact of oscillation in tem- 
perature and consequent glaciation there is general 
agreement. 

The earliest remains of paleolithic man in Europe 
appear to be later than the time of the greatest exten- 
sion of the glaciers ; but, in several localities, relics 
of man are found covered by glacial formations be- 
longing to some of the later periods of advance of the 
glaciers. On the geological scale, then, the date of 
the earliest remains of paleolithic man in Europe must 
be assigned to some one of the interglacial epochs. 

Can we translate, with any reasonable degree of 
approximation, the paleontological and the geological 
date of paleolithic man into terms of human chronol- 
ogy? Among the many theories of the cause of gla- 

69 



The Antiquity of Man 

cial clixTiate, one of the most popular in recent years 
has been that of Croll.* If that theory were the true 
one, it would give us data for a somewhat definite 
chronology of recent geological time. Croll's theory 
of the Glacial period is that it was caused by the con- 
ditions which existed in an epoch of great eccentricity 
of the earth's orbit. It is well known that the eccen- 
tricity of the earth's orbit is a variable quantity. At 
present, the ellipse is of such a form that the difference 
between the aphelion and the perihelion distance of 
the sun is about 3,000,000 miles. At present, the ec- 
centricity is diminishing, and the form of the earth's 
orbit is slowly approaching a circle. It will, however^ 
never become a circle, but after a time will grow more 
eccentric. At times in the past, the eccentricity has 
been so great that the difference between the aphelion 
and the perihelion distance was about 14,000,000 
miles. Since the intensity of heat radiation received 
from the sun varies inversely as the square of the dis- 
tance, and since the motion of the earth (according to 
Kepler's second law) is slow in the aphelion and fast 
in the perihelion portion of its orbit, it is obvious that, 
with so great eccentricity, if either hemisphere, north 
or south, as the case might be, had its winter in aphe- 
lion, that hemisphere would have a very long and cold 
winter, and a very short and hot summer. The other 
hemisphere would have at the same time a short and 
mild winter and a long and cool summer — a compara- 
tively equable climate throughout the year. In the 

* See Croll, Climate and Time in their Geological Relations. 

70 



Croll's Theory of Glacial Climate 

opinion of CroU and his followers, the long and cold 
winter of the hemisphere whose winter was in aphelion 
w^ould tend to produce glacial conditions in spite of 
the heat of the short perihelion summer. Owing to 
other astronomical conditions, the season in which the 
earth passes its aphelion, changes from winter to 
spring, summer, and autumn, and to winter again in 
the course of about 21,000 years. At present, the earth 
passes its aphelion in the summer of the northern, and 
the winter of the southern, hemisphere. In about 
10,500 years these relations will be exactly reversed. 
A period of great eccentricity of the earth's orbit, when 
such a period occurs, is generally of so long duration 
as to allow several such alternations. In one of these 
long periods of great eccentricity, the northern and the 
southern hemisphere would, therefore, experience 
alternately the conditions of an aphelion winter. This 
would mean, according to Croll, a glacial epoch for the 
hemisphere with aphelion winter, and an interglacial 
epoch for the other hemisphere, the two hemispheres 
thus alternating in climatic conditions during the pe- 
riod of great eccentricity. The changes in the eccen- 
tricity of the earth's orbit can be calculated pretty defi- 
nitely for long ages past or future. The last period 
of great eccentricity of the earth's orbit commenced 
about 200,000 years ago, and closed rather less than 
100,000 years ago, so that, if we could accept this in- 
genious theory, it would give us a tolerably definite 
date for the Glacial period and for all events which can 
be correlated therewith. 

71 



The Antiquity of Man 

It is, however, very doubtful whether the conditions 
of the hemisphere having winter in apheHon in a time 
of great eccentricity would really tend to produce a 
glacial epoch. The length of the winter and the short- 
ness of the summer would obviously be favorable to 
glaciation, since it may well be supposed that during 
the winter the greater part of the precipitation would 
be in the form of snow. But the extreme temperatures 
of summer and winter would not be favorable to gla- 
ciation. The amount of snow-fall is not greatly in- 
creased by extreme cold in the winter, but extreme heat 
in the summer must obviously tend to the more rapid 
melting of the snow. In the case, then, of the hemi- 
sphere which has an aphelion winter in a time of high 
eccentricity, the relative length of the seasons tends to 
glaciation, but the intensity of heat and cold is adverse 
to glaciation.* Another objection to the eccentricity 
theory of the Glacial period is found in the date which 
it would compel us to assign to that event. The last 
epoch of great eccentricity came to an end something 
like 70,000 or 80,000 years ago. But the geological 
evidence would seem to indicate that the close of the 
Glacial period could not have been so long ago. The 
geological traces of glacial work are too fresh to be 
consistent with so great an antiquity. The moraines 
which have not been torn to pieces by erosion, the 
scratched and polished rock surfaces which have not 
disappeared by weathering, the ponds which have not 
been drained nor filled — all seem to indicate that the 

* Science y 1886, vol. viii, pp. 188, 347. 
72 



Chamberlin's Theory of Glacial Climate 

close of the Glacial period must have been within a few- 
thousand years of the present time. 

If the eccentricity theory is rejected, the Glacial pe- 
riod must probably be supposed to have been due to 
terrestrial causes. It seems almost certain that the 
Glacial period was preceded by an extensive elevation 
of the continents, particularly of the northern parts 
of the continents, and it is probable that the climatic 
change was in part directly and in part indirectly the 
effect of that elevation. Elevation of land tends 
directly to depress temperature, for, in ascending from 
the level of the sea, we find that the temperature 
falls about one degree Fahrenheit for every three hun- 
dred feet. Continental elevation may also change the 
course of ocean currents, and produce in that way 
effects upon climate more important than the direct 
effect of the increased altitude. But probably by far 
the most important climatic effect of continental eleva- 
tion, as has been recently shown by Professor Cham- 
berlin, of Chicago University,* is due to the effect of 
such elevation upon the constitution of the earth's at- 
mosphere. The carbon dioxide of the atmosphere al- 
lows solar heat to pass to the surface of the earth with 
relatively little absorption, but has relatively great 
power of absorption for the non-luminous rays of great 
wave-length radiated from the surface of the earth. 
This gas, accordingly, acts as a blanket to keep the 
surface of the earth warm. Any increase or decrease 
in the amount of carbon dioxide would practically, 

*Jour7ial of Geology, vol. vi, pp. 449, 609 ; vol. vii, pp. 545, 667, 751. 

73 



The Antiquity of Man 

then, give the earth a thicker or a thinner blanket. The 
atmosphere is losing and gaining carbon dioxide in 
many ways. But the source of loss which at present 
is far more important than any other is the solution 
of limestones. Whenever limestone is dissolved, the 
calcium carbonate is converted into calcium bicarbon- 
ate, and the carbon dioxide required for this change 
is drawn from the atmosphere. Of the sources of gain 
of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, by far the most 
important at the present time is found in the marine 
animals and plants which form calcareous skeletons. 
These creatures draw the material of their skeletons 
from the sea water, in which it exists in solution as 
calcium bicarbonate. Fixing it in their skeletons as 
calcium carbonate, they restore the excess of carbon 
dioxide to the ocean, and hence eventually to the at- 
mosphere. The effect of extensive continental eleva- 
tion upon the atmosphere is both to increase the loss 
of carbon dioxide by exposing larger areas of land 
to the solvent action of water, and to diminish the 
gain of carbon dioxide by converting into land large 
areas of the shallow seas, in which chiefly live the 
marine animals which secrete calcareous skeletons. 
The effect, then, of a continental elevation is to in- 
crease the rate of loss, and diminish the rate of gain, 
of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. 

If the Glacial period is to be explained by terrestrial 
causes, our only means of reaching a rough estimate 
of its chronology is by the study of erosion and other 
geological effects whose date can be correlated with 

74 



Chronology of Niagara 

that event. The gorge of the Niagara River, from 
the Queenston escarpment back to the Falls, has been 
considered as affording one of the most satisfactory 
registers for the estimation of the chronology of the 
Glacial period. It is probable that the whole length of 
that gorge has been excavated since the ice sheet re- 
tired for the last time from the region of Lake Onta- 
rio. Two surveys of the vicinity of the Falls, made 
respectively in 1842 and 1890, show that in the last 
half-century the recession at the apex of the Horse- 
shoe Fall has been between four and five feet per year. 
It seems at first glance to require only the solution of 
a simple proportion to show the date of the beginning 
of the excavation. If the river can cut five feet in 
one year, it can cut seven miles in about seven thousand 
years. But closer study quickly shows that there are 
so many elements of uncertainty that the result of such 
a simple calculation is worthless. The most important 
disturbing element is that it has been shown to be 
highly probable that, at two different epochs during 
the progress of the excavation, the water of the three 
upper lakes was withdrawn into other channels, so 
that much of the gorge was excavated by a stream of 
vastly less volume than the present Niagara.* The 
drainage basin of Lake Erie affords in fact only about 
one ninth of the water of the Niagara River. It is 
probable, therefore, that the time occupied in the ex- 
cavation was a considerable multiple of seven thousand 

* Taylor, A Short Histoiy of the Great Lakes, pp. 104-108, in Dryer's 
Studies in Indiana Geography, Terre Haute, 1897. 

75 



The Antiquity of Man 

years. It is true in general that the rate of erosion 
and sedimentation and other geological processes is 
subject to variation from so many unknown conditions 
as to render any definite time estimates unattainable. 
Geology is not, like astronomy, an exact science in its 
measurement of time. It appears certain, however, 
that the length of the ice age as a whole, with its alter- 
nating glacial and interglacial epochs, was immensely 
greater than the time that has elapsed since the final 
retreat of the ice. The amount of erosion accom- 
plished in postglacial time seems utterly insignificant 
in comparison with that which was accomplished in 
interglacial times. 

While it is impossible to give any definite statement 
of the lapse of time since that interglacial epoch to 
which belong the earliest remains of man in Europe, 
there is probably no doubt in the mind of any geologist 
that the time must be a considerable multiple of the 
six thousand years of the Hebrew chronology or of 
the seven thousand years of the chronology of the Sep- 
tuagint. Neolithic man apparently entered Europe 
after the final retirement of the glaciers, and the date 
of his immigration may have been less than ten thou- 
sand years ago. It would be safe to say that at least 
five figures would be required to express the date of 
paleolithic man. His first appearance in Europe be- 
longs to an antiquity measured not by thousands of 
years on the one hand, nor probably by hundreds of 
thousands on the other, but by tens of thousands of 
years. 

76 



Pithecanthropus Erectus 

But there is no reason to believe that paleoHthic man 
was indigenous in Europe. As we look back through 
the period of history into the dim ages of tradition, 
we seem to see wave after wave of migration coming 
into Europe from the East. In all probability, paleo- 
lithic man, like the races that followed him, immigrated 
into Europe from the East. Exceedingly important 
in this connection is the discovery, within a few years, 
of a human femur and a fragment of a human skull 
in Java. These remains were, indeed, described by 
their discoverer as belonging to a creature intermediate 
between man and ape, which he named Pithecanthro- 
pus ercctiis."^ They are, however, in all probability 
human, though more simian in character than any 
other fossil remains of man. Their location in the 
East Indian Archipelago, the home of the orang and 
the gibbon, is exceedingly suggestive to an evolutionist. 
They may probably claim an antiquity far more remote 
than that of paleolithic man in Europe. 

The question of the antiquity of man was first ear- 
nestly discussed on geological grounds, but evidences 
from various other sources converge towards the be- 
lief in an antiquity far beyond the limits of the tradi- 
tional chronology. On some of the Egyptian monu- 
ments belonging to the Eighteenth Dynasty, thirteen 
centuries before the Christian era, we find paintings 
of Caucasians and Negroes, exhibiting the contrast in 
color and in form of face and head as clearly deiined 
as it is at the present time. Perhaps two thousand 

* Dubois, Pithecanthropus erectus^ in Sfnithsom'a?i Report, 1898, p. 445. 

77 



The Antiquity of Man 

years earlier, in monuments referred to the Fifth 
Dynasty, are figures in bas-reHef, which are said 
to reproduce faithfully the racial characters of the 
pygmy race of the Akkas described by Schweinfurth 




Fig. 8. — Eg^'ptian mural painting, showing contrast between Cau- 
casian and Negro profiles. From Arg3^irs "Primeval Man." 

as living in the country west of the Albert Nyanza.* 
Strongly contrasting with such a prognathous type are 
the pure Caucasian outlines of the royal portraits in 
the early, as in the later, dynasties. The distinct and 
independent origin of a number of human races is 
extremely improbable. The whole tendency of scien- 

* Keane, Ethnology^ p. 245. 

78 



Divergence of Races of Men 

tific thought would lead us rather to believe that even 
the most ' extremely divergent of human races have 
arisen by variation from a single original stock. But, 
if races so distinct as the Caucasian and the Negro had 
acquired their present characters thousands of years 
ago, the suggestion is obvious that the beginning of 
that differentiation must have been in remote antiquity. 

A similar argument may be drawn from the history 
of languages. It is indeed true that comparative phi- 
lology cannot demonstrate the common origin of all 
human languages. According to William D. Whit- 
ney,* the languages of the human race present no such 
resemblances as would suffice to demonstrate original 
unity, and no such differences as to demonstrate orig- 
inal diversity. But, if we believe that physically the 
various races of men have all been derived from a com- 
mon stock, it appears probable that the same thing is 
true of their languages. As far back as we can go in 
the past we find evidence, not only of distinct lan- 
guages, but even of distinct families of languages. The 
date of the beginning of differentiation of human 
speech must be remote indeed. 

Evidence in regard to the development of civiliza- 
tion and political institutions points to the same conclu- 
sion. The date of the beginning of the Fourth Dy- 
nasty of Egyptian kings, the builders of the pyramids 
of Gizeh, is most conservatively estimated by Meyer 
as more than twenty-eight centuries before Christ.f 



* Law^uage and the Stttdv of Language, p. 383. 

t Hastings, Dictiojiary of the Bt'ble, art, Egypt^ by W. E. Crura. 

79 



The Antiquity of Man 

W. M. Flinders Petrie would make the date almost 
four thousand years before Christ.''' The builders of 
those monuments were not primitive savages, but a 
people of arts and culture and elaborate political insti- 
tutions. The civilization which Egypt had attained 
three or four thousand years before Christ must have 
been the growth of ages. Within the last few years 
remains have been brought to light revealing a stage 
in the history of Egyptian civilization far earlier than 
that of the pyramid-builders — remains whose date, 
according to Petrie, is about five thousand years be- 
fore Christ. f The Egyptians of this predynastic pe- 
riod, though far inferior in culture to the invaders who 
brought in the civilization of the First Dynasty, lived 
in brick houses, and fashioned implements of metal as 
well as of stone. Widely scattered over the plateau of 
Upper Egypt are the flint implements of paleolithic 
type, testifying to the existence of an earlier race in 
far more remote antiquity, when climate and geograph- 
ical conditions were very different from the present.J 
The Babylonian civilization seems to be traced by re- 
cent discoveries to a date even earlier than that of the 
First Dynasty of Egypt. § Indeed, the Babylonian 
civilization is believed by many students to be the 
source of the Egyptian. There seems to be reliable 
evidence of a well-established civilization in China not 
less than two thousand years before Christ. Accord- 
ing to the chronology deduced by Archbishop Usher 

* History of Egypt ^ vol. i, p. 30. 

t Ibid., vol. i, p. 8. % Ibid., vol. i, p. 5. 

§ Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, art. Babylonia, by F. Hommel. 

80 



Genesis and Geology 

from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Noachian Deluge oc- 
curred 2348 B. C. The pyramids of Gizeh, accord- 
ingly, by the most conservative estimate, are hundreds 
of years older than the date of the Deluge in Usher's 
chronology. It may be said that the Septuagint text 
would carry the date of the Deluge seven or eight hun- 
dred years further back than the Hebrew. But the 
difference between the Hebrew chronology and the 
Septuagint is utterly insignificant in comparison with 
the antiquity demanded for the human race by the 
convergent evidence derived from all branches of study 
relating to the prehistoric past. 

Genesis and Geology 

We must now consider the effect of the discoveries 
whose history we have sketched, in regard to the an-, 
tiquity of the earth and of man, upon the interpretation 
of the Bible and upon the doctrine of the inspiration 
and authority of the Bible. And first our attention is 
demanded by the supposed narratives of the creation 
in the first two chapters of Genesis, and the bearing of 
geological science upon their interpretation. 

Any one who will read the first two chapters of 
Genesis in any other than a casual and perfunctory 
way, can readily recognize that they contain not one, 
but two, narratives of the Creation. The first of these 
narratives includes the whole of the first chapter and 
the first three verses of the second chapter. The sec- 
ond narrative includes the remainder of the second 
chapter. There is no reasonable doubt that the two 

81 



Genesis and Geology 

narratives were written at different times and by dif- 
ferent persons. There is at present, among those who 
are competent to have an opinion on the subject, sub- 
stantial unanimity in the belief that the Book of Gen- 
esis is a composite structure, containing fragments of 
documents of various ages which a later editor col- 
lected into the present compilation. The two narra- 
tives present characteristic differences of language. 
One such difference may be mentioned, as showing 
itself conspicuously even in the English translation. 
In the first narrative the Deity is constantly called 
''God''; in the second he is as constantly called ''the 
Lord God." 

The comparison of the two narratives reveals im- 
portant discrepancies, or at least differences, between 
them. The first narrative makes the work of creation 
occupy six days ; the second speaks of "the day that 
the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." The 
first narrative makes man the last work of creation; 
the second makes the creation of man precede that of 
plants and animals. The first narrative irnplies the 
simultaneous creation of a plurality of human indi- 
viduals — "male and female created he them ;" the sec- 
ond describes the making of a single male individual 
out of the dust of the ground, and the subsequent mak- 
ing of a single female individual out of a rib taken 
from the body of the man. The first narrative pre- 
sents the history of creation as a continuous progress 
from lower to higher forms of existence, in which 
each stage is pronounced "good" in its time and or- 

82 



Elohistic and Jehovistic Narratives 

der ; the second gives us a procedure involving experi- 
ment and afterthought — the Creator being represented 
as saying that it was not good that the soHtary man 
he had made should be alone, then proceeding to make 
the various members of the brute creation, finding 
among them no "help meet" for the man, and at last 
making a woman to supply the desideratum. The first 
narrative conceives the whole process of creation from 
a quasi-evolutionary point of view — ''Let the earth 
bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit 
tree yielding fruit" — "Let the waters bring forth abun- 
dantly the moving creature that hath life" — "Let the 
earth bring forth cattle, and creeping thing, and beast 
of the earth after his kind ;" the second gives a pro- 
cedure in the style of the "carpenter God" of the old 
natural theology — the Deity being represented as 
manufacturing animals and man out of the dust of 
the ground, planting a garden, and extracting a rib 
from the man for the fabrication of a woman. 

Evidently the first task for the interpreter who re- 
gards these two narratives as scientifically accurate his- 
tory of the process of creation is to reconcile them with 
each other. Until that can be done, it is superfluous to 
inquire whether both or either of them can be recon- 
ciled with the teachings of science in regard to the 
history of man and his dwelling-place. The natural 
conclusion for a mind free from any dogmatic pre- 
possessions in regard to the inerrancy of Scripture 
would be that the two narratives are certainly not 
scientifically accurate history of the process of crea- 

83 



Genesis and Geology 

tioii. If intended to be such history, one of them at 
least is more or less erroneous. 

Moreover, from a literary point of view, it may be 
reasonably maintained that the narratives have more 
the appearance of poetry or allegory than of science 
or history. The parallelism of structure running 
through the first narrative, and its division into stanzas 
each of which concludes with a refrain, give it much 
more the style of a psalm than that of a scientific trea- 
tise. The literary character of the compositions cer- 
tainly suggests the query, whether the original writer 
of either narrative intended to give a scientifically ac- 
curate history. 

Long before the development either of Biblical crit- 
icism or of geology, thoughtful men recognized diffi- 
culties in the way of any literal understanding of some 
parts of these narratives. Saint Augustine queried 
what might be the meaning of those sunless days be- 
fore the creation of the heavenly luminaries. But it is 
not within the scope of our present discussion to re- 
view in detail the interpretations of the early chapters 
of Genesis in patristic and medieval time. We are 
concerned at present only with the history of interpre- 
tation since the rise of the science of geology. 

But, before proceeding to sketch the history of the 
interpretations which have been developed under the 
influence of geological facts and theories, it is neces- 
sary to remark that that history has taken a peculiar 
form in consequence of the fact that the conceptions of 
geology first became prominent in the world's thought 

84 



Inspiration of Scripture 

at about the same time with a particular stage of de- 
velopment of the doctrine of the church with reference 
to the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures. Had 
the conceptions of geology entered into the general cur- 
rent of the world's thought either earlier or later than 
they did, that history (at least as regards the Protes- 
tant churches) might have been considerably different. 
That God has given a revelation through the me- 
dium of inspired men, has been indeed a part of the 
faith of the Church Universal. "Holy men of God 
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." The 
Holy Ghost, according to the Nicene Creed, ''spake by 
the prophets." And, ever since the books of the New 
Testament were collected and formed into a canon, the 
Bible has been cherished as the precious record of that 
revelation. But inspiration is not omniscience. And 
the belief that the writers of the Bible were under the 
special influence and guidance of the Divine Spirit is 
a very different thing from the belief that their opin- 
ions were always just, their arguments always conclu- 
sive, or their knowledge of facts always accurate. The 
dogma of inerrancy of Scripture appears in none of 
the ancient creeds, and forms no part of the Catholic 
faith. In patristic times. Saint Jerome, the leading 
Biblical scholar of the early ages of the church, did not 
hesitate to say that Paul's argument based on the 
singular number of the word ''seed" (Gal., iii, i6) was 
addressed to the "foolish Galatians," and was adapted 
to the comprehension of those to whom it was ad- 
dressed. It does not concern our present purpose to 

85 



Genesis and Geology 

inquire whether Jerome's judgment in regard to the 
value of Paul's argument was sound or not. The fact 
that he felt at liberty to hold and express such a judg- 
ment shows how far he was from believing in the in- 
errancy of Scripture. Such a belief was not held by 
the early Reformers. The freedom of Luther's treat- 
ment of some books of the Bible is well known. The 
Epistle of James he pronounced "recht strohern," since 
it seemed to him to conflict with the Pauline doctrine 
of justification by faith. Calvin and others of the Re- 
formers, though less violent than Luther in their forms 
of expression, recognized, as explicitly as he, that the 
spiritual enlightenment of the writers of Scripture was 
in varying degrees, and did not infallibly preserve them 
from errors of memory or of opinion. 

But the weaker spirits of a later generation were 
frightened by the work which the Reformation had 
accomplished. Having cut loose from the authority of 
the Church of Rome, they found themselves adrift on 
a sea of speculation, and sought in terror some post to 
which they could moor themselves. The infallible 
Church was gone forever; but something infallible 
must be found to take its place. Hence came the dogma 
of the inerrant Bible. I do not of course intend to 
charge the theologians of the post-Reformation period 
with the conscious dishonesty of manufacturing a dog- 
ma to meet a supposed moral need. There is an un- 
conscious logic of hopes and fears which insidiously 
smuggles its conclusions into the realm of the intellect ; 
and I believe the genesis of the new dogma from the 

86 



Inerrancy of Scripture 

terrified sense of need of infallible authority was no 
less real because unconscious. 

The Bible, then, was asserted to be absolutely in- 
errant — its most insignificant details, as well as its 
most important teachings; its merely incidental allu- 
sions, as well as its central and essential doctrines. 
Every sentence within the covers of the Bible must 
be assumed to be absolutely '*the word of God." The 
Bible must therefore be recognized as a normative au- 
thority for the belief of a Christian, not simply within 
the sphere of morals and religion, but on every subject 
which may be incidentally mentioned. 

But the post to which the bark of faith was to be 
moored must be not only firmly grounded, but also stifT 
and inflexible. To serve the purpose of a normative au- 
thority, not only must the Bible be absolutely infallible, 
but also it must admit of no diversity of interpretation. 
Hence came the dogma that everything in the Bible 
must be construed with absolute literality, unless an ex- 
plicit indication to the contrary is contained in the text 
itself. No allowance is to be made for the character- 
istics of the Oriental mind, which are so conspicuous 
on every page to him who reads the Bible with any lit- 
erary sense. In spite of its obviously dramatic form, 
the Book of Job mvist be considered veritable history, 
since it is not explicitly stated to be unhistorical. The 
story of the nobleman who delivered ten pounds to his 
ten servants is expressly called by the evangelist a 
parable ; but, as the story of the rich man and Lazarus 
is not so labelled, the latter story must be considered 

87 



Genesis and Geology 

veritable biography. The eschatological symbols of 
the Apocalypse — the great white throne, the assembly 
of the dead for judgment, the opening of the books, 
the lake of fire and brimstone, the jasper- walled 
New Jerusalem — are all to be interpreted with wooden 
literality. 

In order to maintain the inerrancy of Scripture, all 
discrepancies between different narratives of or allu- 
sions to the same event must be explained away. This 
has been done on the principle that omission of par- 
ticulars is not inconsistent with inerrancy. If, there- 
fore, the particulars given in different narratives are 
different, the reconciliation must be found in the con- 
struction of a narrative which will include all the par- 
ticulars given anywhere. If Matthew says Jesus healed 
two blind men as he was leaving Jericho, and Mark 
says that he healed one blind man as he was leaving 
Jericho, and Luke says that he healed one blind man as 
he was entering Jericho, the narratives must be har- 
monized by the assumption that he healed one blind 
man on entering and two on leaving the city, the con- 
versations in the two cases being substantially iden- 
tical — a supposition which, however improbable it may 
be, is not absolutely impossible, and which is not ex- 
plicitly contradicted by either narrative. Since no 
erroneous particular can be anywhere inserted, the gen- 
eral rule of interpretation was developed, that in all 
cases the account which is fullest in particulars must 
be considered as the standard, and briefer accounts 
must be so explained as to harmonize therewith. 

88 



Biblical Theory of Creation 

These principles applied to the first two chapters of 
Genesis served to develop a theological theory of the 
process of creation. Both narratives must be assumed 
to be absolutely inerrant; both must be interpreted 
with absolute literality; every particular given in 
either must be included in the composite narrative. The 
first narrative is fullest in detail in regard to the lower 
orders of creatures, the second in regard to man. 
Hence the first narrative must be the standard for the 
early stages of the history, the second for the conclud- 
ing stages. The work must be conceived to have occu- 
pied six literal days; and, when the second narrative 
speaks of "the day that the Lord God made the earth 
and the heavens," the word day must be taken in a 
loose and unchronological sense, or else the making of 
the earth and the heavens must be understood to refer 
simply to the initial act of creation of matter. The or- 
der of events given in the first narrative must be ac- 
cepted as the true one ; and the different order in the 
second narrative must be considered as due to the fact 
that that narrative is merely a brief summary, in which 
chronological succession is ignored, and only results 
are given. The creation of man must be supposed to 
have taken place as the closing work of the sixth day, 
according to the first narrative; but its method must 
have been that given in detail in the second narrative — 
the forming of a single male individual out of the dust 
of the ground, and (after the procession of the animal 
kingdom before the man, and the failure to find a help 
meet for him) the deep sleep, the removal of the rib, 

89 



Genesis and Geology 

and the production of the woman. Thus, by judi- 
ciously ignoring or explaining away a few phrases, the 
two narratives were ''harmonized," and a Biblical the- 
ory of the process of creation constructed. 

Such was the doctrine of Holy Scripture, and such 
the interpretation of the first two chapters of Genesis, 
which had been developed in the Protestant churches, 
at the time when the new science of geology began to 
make its influence prominently felt in the general cur- 
rent of the world's thinking. 

There was, indeed, a short period in which it seemed 
as if the new science might bring some aid and com- 
fort to believers in the literal truth of the early chap- 
ters of Genesis. When, after more than a century of 
controversy, it came to be generally acknowledged that 
fossils were actually relics of plants and animals of an 
earlier age, it was for a time widely maintained that 
the fossiliferous strata were deposited by the waters of 
the Noachian Deluge. The marine shells found high 
up on the Alps were hailed as strong confirmation of 
the Mosaic narrative of the Flood, by whose waters 
"all the high hills that were under the whole heaven 
were covered." It is interesting to find Voltaire sug- 
gesting that the marine shells found on the Alps were 
only the scallop-shells thrown away by pilgrims on 
their return from the Holy Land. 

But the hopes of the theologians to find in the new 
science support for the orthodox theory of the creation 
and early history of the world proved illusive. Fur- 
ther study made it obvious that the deposition of the 

90 



Geologists Denounced as Infidels 

fossiliferous strata was not to be attributed to the No- 
achian Deluge. And so the conflict between geology 
and Genesis commenced, with the demand of the geol- 
ogists for an indefinite allowance of time, in which the 
earth could have passed through the manifold series 
of physical and biological changes of which the strata 
are the monument. 

Of course the first attitude of the interpreters of 
Genesis w^as that of simple denial of the conclusions of 
the geologists. Some invented a variety of more or 
less absurd theories to account for the origin of the 
stratified rocks with their fossil contents, such as the 
hypothesis of a reversal of continent and ocean at the 
time of the Noachian Deluge, and the consequent ap- 
pearance on dry land of the deposits formed on the 
ocean bed in the centuries between the Creation and 
the Deluge. Others contented themselves with de- 
nouncing the geologists as infidels, without taking the 
trouble to excogitate any hypothesis for the explana- 
tion of the phenomena on which the doctrines of the 
geologists were based. A typical expression of the way 
in which geologists were regarded by the church in 
general, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, is 
found in the words of Cowper, — 

"Some drill and bore 
The solid earth ; and, from the strata there, 
Extract a register by which they prove 
That He who made it, and revealed its date 
To Moses, was mistaken in its age." 

But the progress of science could not be stopped by 

91 



Genesis and Geology 

the denials of stolid ignorance or by the perverse inge- 
nuity of pseudo-scientific hypotheses. The time soon 
came when the belief in a considerable antiquity of the 
earth was so generally accepted that it was obviously 
necessary for theologians to accommodate themselves 
to it. The problem then was to maintain the absolute 
literal truth of the first two chapters of Genesis, and at 
the same tim.e concede the indefinite eons demanded by 
the geologists. And, when the necessity was recog- 
nized, nothing was easier. The first narrative begins 
as follows : "In the beginning God created the heaven 
and the earth. And the earth was without form and 
void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. 
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
waters. And God said, 'Let there be light.' " Now 
inerrancy in a narrative does not imply completeness. 
Any number of facts may be passed over in silence, 
provided there is no inaccuracy in the particulars which 
are asserted. Any amount of history may therefore 
have had its place between the "beginning" mentioned 
in the first verse and the chaos described in the second 
verse. Some exegetes a little more ingenious made the 
discovery that the second clause in the narrative might 
be translated, "And the earth became without form 
and void," thereby giving an implication of a more or 
less extended series of events preceding the reign of 
chaos. So the theologians said to the geologists, "Put 
in all the time you want between the first and the sec- 
ond verse of Genesis. Build up your piles of strata 
by processes of erosion and sedimentation as leisurely 

92 



Supposed Chaos before Creative Week 

as you choose. Let as many generations of monsters 
now extinct as the imagination of man's heart can con- 
ceive disport themselves through measureless eons. 
Only allow the history of the extinct creations to termi- 
nate, a reign of chaos and darkness and death to super- 
vene, and the present arrangements of the earth, with 
the present races of living creatures, to be produced in 
six literal days, six thousand years ago." 

Thus the problem was solved without departing a 
hair's breadth from the literal meaning of any word 
in the narratives of Genesis. And for the time the 
geologists were satisfied. All they wanted was time; 
and this exegesis gave them all the time they wanted. 
The geologists of the closing years of the eighteenth 
century and the first third of the nineteenth century 
were all catastrophists.* They knew no mode of transi- 
tion from the physical and biological conditions of one 
geological period to those of another, except by tre- 
mendous cataclysms or convulsions of nature, extermi- 
nating all living creatures, and leaving the field clear 
for a new creation. The chaos of the second verse of 
Genesis was therefore only the last of the catastrophes 
of geological theory. And there was no reason then 
known to geologists why that last catastrophe might 
not have been as recent as the Mosaic chronology 
required. f 

But the truce was of short duration. Catastrophism 
in geology was dethroned, and uniformitarianism 



* See page 51. 

t See Hitchcock, T/ie Religion of Geology^ lect. ii. 

93 



Genesis and Geology 

reigned injts stead. Geological periods were no longer 
conceived to be separated from each other by cha- 
otic cataclysms. More critical paleontological study 
showed that seldom, if ever, was the change of fauna 
and flora complete in passing from one stratum to 
another. Some species survived, while the majority 
became extinct. Even in those rare instances in which 
the change of fossil contents between successive forma- 
tions seemed to be complete, it began to be believed that 
the facts proved not a sudden and universal extermina- 
tion of life, but only an unrecorded interval during 
which the fauna and flora were more or less gradually 
changing. It became substantially certain that no uni- 
versal extermination of life preceded the dawn of the 
Recent period. Some species which still survive com- 
menced in the Eocene, if not earlier ; and, all through 
the Tertiary and Quaternary, old species were gradu- 
ally becoming extinct, new species being introduced, 
and the fauna and flora gradually approximating those 
of the present time. Early in the latter half of the 
nineteenth century, the coexistence of relics of man 
with fossil remains of the mammoth and other species 
of mammals now extinct came to be accepted as un- 
questionable. This showed conclusively that there was 
no chaotic break between the age of man and the ages 
preceding. A feeble attempt, indeed, was made in some 
quarters to make the Glacial period do service as the 
chaos required by the traditional interpretation of Gen- 
esis ; but the Glacial period utterly fails to fulfill the re- 
quirements. It wrought no universal extermination of 

94 



Chaos Supposed to be Local 

life, followed by a new creation. Multitudes of species 
simply migrated southward, as the ice sheets of Europe 
and America slowly extended themselves from their 
centres in the Scandinavian and Laurentian hills, and 
followed back on the edge of the retreating glaciers, as 
the climate of those regions gradually ameliorated. 
And over the greater part of the earth's surface there 
was nothing which could be called a Glacial period. 

The theory of anything corresponding to the chaos 
of the traditional interpretation of the second verse of 
Genesis, intervening between the latest of past geolog- 
ical periods and the present, became manifestly unten- 
able. There was, however, a curious modification of 
the theory, proposed by J. Pye Smith,* which was in- 
capable of refutation. That proposition was to con- 
sider the chaos, with its darkness and death, and the 
creation of a new order of things, as purely local, per- 
taining only to the immediate vicinity of the Garden 
of Eden. It would certainly be impossible to prove 
that there was not some unknown area somewhere, in 
which, six thousand years ago, there was an interval 
of darkness and death, follow^ed by a period of six 
literal days, during w^hich the atmosphere was made 
once more to admit the sunlight, and some animals and 
plants were created. But there are theories in regard 
to which refutation is equally impossible and unnec- 
essary. To save the supposed inerrancy of the first 
chapter of Genesis, at cost of stripping it of all its dig- 

* The Relation between the Holy Scriptures and Some Parts of Geological 
Science, lect. vii, part ii, 

95 



Genesis and Geology 

nity and significance, is a very poor service to Chris- 
tian faith. The theory of a local chaos never gained 
many converts. The common sense of the church 
seems to have recognized that, if the credit of the Mo- 
saic narrative could be saved only by such a device, it 
was not worth saving. The theory is, however, in- 
teresting as illustrating the tendencies of the prevalent 
doctrines in regard to the inspiration and the interpre- 
tation of Scripture. 

With the abandonment of the attempt to interpolate 
all geological history between the first and the second 
verse of Genesis, and thus to preserve intact in its 
literality the story of the creative week, it became nec- 
essary to find some new scheme of reconciliation. We 
have already seen that the spirit of the post-Reforma- 
tion doctrine of Scripture was adverse to any departure 
from strictly literal interpretation. But inerrancy must 
be maintained, if necessary, at cost of sacrifice of liter- 
ality. If the literal interpretation of a Scripture passage 
yields a sense which is obviously false, then it must be 
assumed that some figurative interpretation is the true 
one. In any case. Scripture must be so interpreted as 
to convey no erroneous meaning. There came in, ac- 
cordingly, a class of schemes of reconciliation whose 
essential characteristic was that the days of the creative 
week were considered in some sense symbolic or repre- 
sentative of indefinite periods of time. 

It is a curious illustration of the tenacity with which 
theologians clung to a literal interpretation, that some 
of the earliest writers who regarded the creative week 

96 



Mosaic Days Symbolic 

as a period of indefinite length, attempted nevertheless 
to hold fast, at least in form, the notion of literal days. 
Certain writers, for instance, suggested that, in the 
early periods of the earth's history, the rotation of the 
earth on its axis may have been inconceivably slow, so 
that a literal day may have been an immensely long 
period of time. It is needless to say that astronomy 
gives to any such notion an unqualified contradiction. 
Others suggested that Moses does indeed give the his- 
tory of six literal days ; but that those days, instead of 
being consecutive, were separated by immense inter- 
vals of time, so as to be representative of successive 
periods in the history of creation. This seems only 
a juggle of words; but it is interesting as illus- 
trating how reluctantly the literal interpretation was 
abandoned.* 

But, however reluctantly, it was at last abandoned; 
and the scheme of symbolic days, in some form or 
other, came into general acceptance. It will be no- 
ticed that the word ''day" came to be regarded as mean- 
ing an indefinitely long period of time, not because 
that interpretation was considered a natural one, but 
because it seemed to be necessary in order to save the 
historic truth of the narrative. It had become sub- 
stantially certain that the universe was not made in six 
literal days; but it might be considered to have been 
made in six indefinite periods. Therefore, an inerrant 
writer could not have intended to say that the universe 

* References to the authors of these transitional opinions are given in 
Hitchcock, Elementary Geology^ 30th edition, 1859, P- 34^. 

97 



Genesis and Geology 

was made in six literal days, but might have intended 
to say that it was made in six indefinite periods. The 
interpretation was necessitated by the prevalent theory 
of inspiration. Whether the interpretation can be con- 
sidered a legitimate one, is a question which only He- 
brew scholars can decide. The corresponding Hebrew 
word, like the word "day" in English, is undoubtedly 
often used indefinitely for the time at which something 
occurs, without regard to duration, and may also be 
used in poetry in a variety of altogether figurative 
senses; but whether, in a composition of historical or 
scientific character, it can be understood to mean an 
eon, is a difTerent question. Whether the interpreta- 
tion itself be legitimate or not, the critic unbiased by 
dogmatic prepossessions must consider the process by 
which it was reached essentially illegitimate. 

It is certain, nevertheless, that the scheme of symbolic 
days gives a higher and more dignified character to 
the Biblical narrative than the earlier scheme of inter- 
polating all geological time between the first and the 
second verse of Genesis. It makes the theme of the 
first chapter of Genesis the creation of the heaven and 
the earth — not a supposed incident in the conclusion of 
the process. In this it is certainly more true to the 
spirit of the passage. Whether the passage is history 
or poetry, scientifically exact or more or less erroneous, 
divine revelation or human imagination, there is no 
reasonable doubt that the theme it intends to treat is 
the creation of the heaven and the earth. The new 
scheme has also an attractive feature in the meaning 

98 



The Divine Sabbath 

which it gives to the seventh clay — the Divine Sab- 
bath. If the six days were periods of indefinite length, 
the seventh day may be considered to extend from the 
creation of man to the consummation of earth's his- 
tory. The work of creation having culminated, and in 
an important sense terminated, in the introduction of 
man, the characteristic activity of the Deity in terres- 
trial affairs is thenceforward a moral and religious 
work — the training of his human children for spiritual 
fellowship with himself. In this view, the Divine Sab- 
bath becomes a beautiful type of the day of Christian 
worship — not the idle repose of a tired laborer, but 
earnest activity, inspired by holiest feeling and directed 
to the noblest purpose. 

The theory of symbolic days has been developed in 
a variety of forms. On the general assumption that 
the days of Genesis represent successive periods in the 
process of creation, interpreters have differed widely 
as to the question what natural events are referred to 
in the somewhat vague language descriptive of the 
work of each day. Two of these schemes may be taken 
as specimens; and the comparison of the two will be 
instructive. 

One of the earliest, and perhaps the best, of these 
schemes was proposed a generation ago by Hugh 
Miller.* His general conception was that the work 
of creation was presented to the mind of the seer 
in a series of visions — ideal landscapes, so to speak — 
representing successive stages in the history of the 

* The Testimony of the Rocks, lects. iii, iv. 

99 



Genesis and Geology 

globe. As the material for his narrative was given in 
the form of visions, his description is to be considered 
purely visual — phenomenal. He sketches in pictur- 
esque language the most conspicuous features of the 
pictures presented to his imagination, making no at- 
tempt at scientific interpretation of them. As the whole 
Biblical conception of the universe is geocentric, the 
"Mosaic vision of creation" forms no exception. The 
heavenly bodies are considered simply as incidents or 
adornments of the earth. The work of the first day — 
the creation of light — represents accordingly the stage 
of the earth's development in which the atmosphere 
first became sufficiently diaphanous to allow light from 
the sun to penetrate to the surface. The precipitation 
of condensing vapors to form the primeval ocean is 
supposed to have proceeded so far as to give the at- 
mosphere some degree of translucency some time in 
the course of the Archaean age. The second day's 
work — the creation of the firmament — represents a 
stage in the condensation of vapors when the lower 
strata of the atmosphere had become tolerably clear, 
while a continuous ocean of cloud filled the upper re- 
gions, rendering sun, moon, and stars still invisible, 
though the amount of diffused light had increased. 
This condition is supposed to have been reached early 
in the Paleozoic eon. The works of the third day — 
separation of land from water, and creation of plants — 
find their obvious explanation in the broad continental 
areas and luxuriant forest vegetation of the Carbon- 
iferous. The fourth day's work — creation of sun, 

ICO 



The Mosaic Vision of Creation 

moon, and stars — represents the period when the con- 
densation of vapors and clarification of the atmos- 
phere had proceeded so far that the sun, moon, and 
stars became visible from the surface of the earth. 
This stage Miller supposes to have been reached in 
the latter part of the Carboniferous or in Triassic time. 
The fifth day's work — creation of sea monsters — is 
naturally referred to the culmination of reptilian life 
in the later Mesozoic. The works of the sixth day — 
creation of beasts and of man — correspond well with 
the culmination of mammalian life in the Cenozoic, and 
the appearance of man in the Quaternary. 

A very different scheme has been proposed by Pro- 
fessors Dana* and Guyot;f and the deservedly high 
respect in which these great Christian scholars have 
been held has secured for their scheme very general 
acceptance. They give to the first chapter of Genesis 
a more strictly scientific character than is attributed to 
it by Miller. The description is supposed to be not 
purely visual or phenomenal, but somewhat philosoph- 
ical. The ideas were communicated to the mind of the 
seer, not by vision, but by some other mode of revela- 
tion. The significance of the first two days is not ter- 
restrial, but cosmical. The work of the first day is the 
beginning of molecular activity in matter. Since all 
forms of physical energy are correlated, the dawning 
of light would be the sign that those transformations 

* Manual of Geology, 3d edition, p. 845 ; The Genesis 0/ the Heave7is and 
the Earth ; Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. xlii, p. 201 ; Old a?id Neiv Testatnent 
Student, vol. xi, pp. 12, 84. 

t Creation; or, the Biblical Cosmogony in the Light 0/ Modern Science. 

lOI 



Genesis and Geology 

of energy which constitute the history of nature had 
commenced. The second day's work — the dividing of 
the ^'waters which were under the firmament from the 
waters which w^ere above the firmament," or, in more 
technical language, the dividing of the fluids from the 
fluids — is interpreted as referring to the separation of 
the molten mass of the earth from those of the sun 
and the other planets — the individualization of the 
earth, in accordance with the nebular theory. The 
works of the third day refer to the beginning of differ- 
entiation between continent and ocean, and the appear- 
ance of the simplest and humblest forms of vegetation. 
The former of these events certainly occurred in the 
Archaean, and the latter probably before the begin- 
ning of the Cambrian. The fourth day's work is con- 
sidered by Dana and Guyot, as by Miller, to represent 
the stage of condensation of atmospheric vapors which 
rendered the heavenly bodies visible from the surface 
of the earth. According to these writers, however, that 
stage was reached about the beginning of Paleozoic 
time, rather than at the much later date assigned by 
Miller. The fifth day's work is interpreted as referring 
to the gradual unfolding of the types of structure of 
the animal kingdom (exclusive of the mammalia), 
through Paleozoic and Mesozoic time. The chrono- 
logical reference of the sixth day is essentially the same 
as in Miller's scheme. 

The comparison of these two schemes with each 
other and with the facts of paleontology may be facili- 
tated by a tabular statement. In the table on page 103, 

102 



Table of Geological Ages 



Eons. 


Eras. 


Changes in 
Fauna and Flora. 


Miller. 


Dana. 


r^pno7nip 


Quaternary 


Man begins. 


VI 


VI 




Tertiary 


Placental mammals begin. 




Cretaceous 


Higher flowering plants begin 
(angiosperms). 


V 




Mesozoic 


Jurassic 


Birds begin. Reptiles cul- 
minate. Gymnosperms 
culminate. 






Triassic 


Mammals begin (non-placen- 
tal). Reptiles become much 
more abundant. Amphib- 
ians culminate. 


IV 






Carboniferous 


Reptiles begin. Amphibians 
become much more abun- 






"^ 


V 




dophytes culminate. 






Devonian 


Amphibians begin. Fishes 
become much more abun- 
dant. Flowering plants be- 
gin (gymnosperms). 




Paleozoic 


II 




Silurian 


Fishes becom* more abijn- 






Ordovician 














sects). Land plants begin 
(pteridophytes). 


IV 




Cambrian 


Marine invertebrates varied 
and abundant. Seaweeds. 


Archaean 




Evidences of life scanty and 
dubious. 


I 


III 



103 



Genesis and Geology 

the first column gives the four great eons into which 
geological time is divided, and the second column the 
eras into which those eons are subdivided. The third 
column indicates the most important changes in fauna 
and flora by which each era was signalized, as shown 
by fossils. The fourth column shows the portions of 
geological time assigned by Miller to each of the Mo- 
saic days. The fifth column shows the portions of 
geological time assigned by Dana to four of those days. 
It will be recognized that the table is arranged in the 
order of superposition of the geological strata, and 
must accordingly be read from bottom to top in order 
to show the course of the earth's history. 

The very fact of so wide a discrepancy between these 
interpretations of a passage which students of nature 
and of the Bible, so reverent and so learned, have as- 
sumed to be a divine revelation of scientific facts, cer-- 
tainly suggests the doubt whether there is in the pas- 
sage any revelation of scientific facts at all. A divine 
revelation of a stage in the history of creation is cer- 
tainly of very little value, if couched in terms so darkly 
enigmatical that one cannot tell whether they refer to 
a state of incipient translucency in the earth's atmos- 
phere, or to the beginning of molecular activity in the 
cosmos ; to the formation of a stratum of cloud above 
the clearing lower strata of the atmosphere, or to the 
individualization of a molten orb from a condensing 
nebula. The propounding of mere riddles seems more 
in keeping with the spirit of pagan than with that of 
Christian oracles. 

104 



Revelation of Science Improbable 

It seems on general principles improbable that a 
revelation of scientific facts and theories should be 
given. Everywhere else in the Bible, nature is referred 
to only in the most purely phenomenal way. The as- 
pects of the physical universe are alluded to as they 
appear to the uneducated senses of man in an unscien- 
tific age. The Biblical wTiters show in general no in- 
dication of any knowledge of nature superior to that 
possessed by other men of their time. Some of them 
were acute observers of nature in an esthetic fashion — 
many of the Psalms breathing the spirit of the true 
nature-poet; but any language implying attempt at 
scientific explanation of natural phenomena is apt to 
reveal a totally erroneous conception. It is, then, ex- 
ceedingly improbable that, in the isolated case of the 
first two chapters of Genesis, a somewhat detailed 
sketch of the history of the earth should have been 
supernaturally revealed. This objection lies with even 
greater force against the theory of Dana and Guyot 
than against that of Miller. We might perhaps con- 
ceive of a series of visions, exhibiting in pictorial fash- 
ion some stages of the earth's history, being presented 
to the mind of an inspired seer; but it would tax our 
credulity more severely to believe that there were given 
enigmatical intimations of the nebular theory and of 
the doctrine of conservation of energy. 

Such a revelation could serve only one conceivable 
purpose. As the enigmas, unintelligible when first 
spoken or written, found their interpretation in the dis- 
covery of the facts to which they referred, they might 



Genesis and Geology 

furnish material for a chapter on the evidences of reve- 
lation. Not long ago the Bible was supposed to be 
full of material of an analogous kind. The prophetic 
passages, both of the Old and the New Testament, 
were supposed to afford detailed predictions of histor- 
ical events destined to occur centuries or millenniums 
subsequent to the date of the prophecy — predictions 
absolutely meaningless and useless to the people to 
whom they were written or spoken, but destined to be 
interpreted by the gradual evolution of history, and so 
to furnish the material for a perpetually lengthening 
chapter of Christian evidences. A radical change has 
come over our conception of the function of prophecy. 
With more critical determination of the date of some 
prophecies and the meaning of others, with a fuller 
recognition of the truth that most of the prophetic ut- 
terances having the form of prediction were simply 
threats or promises conditioned on the conduct of the 
persons addressed, with the frank acknowledgment that 
some predictions have failed of exact fulfilment, we 
have come to regard as the main function of prophecy, 
not the construction of a map of all future history with 
symbols and names in cipher, but the presentation of 
warnings, consolations, and moral exhortations, to re- 
form or confirm the religious faith and life of the peo- 
ple addressed.* It is not likely that the Bible contains 
prophetic riddles of science, any more than of history. 
It can hardly be claimed that any scientific man 

* It is not intended to deny that there are some prophecies which look far 
down the ages ; notably, the growing burden of Messianic prophecy, which 
runs all through the Old Testament. 

1 06 



Schemes of Reconciliation Criticized 

would, for any scientific purpose, divide the earth's 
history (whether beginning with the commencement 
of molecular activity in matter, or with the individuali- 
zation of the earth) into six co-ordinate periods cor- 
responding with the creative days of Genesis. All 
that the advocates of either of the schemes we have 
considered (or of any other form of the theory of days 
representative of long periods) could possibly claim, 
is that the earth's history can be arbitrarily divided 
into six periods, characterized respectively, more or 
less appropriately, by some one event (or two) whose 
order of succession will not contradict the order in 
Genesis. Critically examined, neither of the schemes 
which we have considered will be found to meet this 
condition. 

The enumeration of the animals which appeared re- 
spectively on the fifth and on the sixth day certainly 
presents difficulties on either scheme of interpretation. 
It is almost certain that mammals appeared before 
birds in geological history, while in the order of Gene- 
sis birds are assigned to the fifth day, and mammals 
to the sixth. It may, indeed, be replied that birds 
probably did precede the typical placental mammals, 
and that there is no serious error in ignoring the insig- 
nificant monotremes and marsupials of early Mesozoic 
time. It may be further alleged that birds are men- 
tioned in the enumeration of the works of the fifth 
day, simply as completing the inventory of non-mam- 
malian life, which is collectively contrasted with mam- 
malian life; it being undoubtedly true that non-mam- 

107 



Genesis and Geology 

malian life in general preceded mammalian life. A 
somewhat more serious difficulty is found in the word 
translated "creeping thing" in the enumeration of the 
works of the sixth day. The word is indefinite in its 
signification, but it certainly cannot be understood as 
referring exclusively to the smaller mammals, though 
these may be supposed to be included. The word in- 
cludes the terrestrial reptiles and an indefinite variety 
of terrestrial invertebrates. It is needless to say that 
most of the groups of animals included in this hetero- 
geneous assemblage antedated considerably in their or- 
igin any period of geological time which any form of 
the theory of symbolic days has appropriated to the 
sixth day. It may be answered that reptiles (as repre- 
sented by the larger and the more conspicuous mem- 
bers of the class) are included among the dragons, or 
sea monsters, of the fifth day (the word 'Svhales" in 
the authorized version being inadequate, if not alto- 
gether incorrect, as a translation) ; and that the smaller 
and more insignificant reptiles, amphibians, and inver- 
tebrates are ignored in an enumeration which makes 
no attempt at exhaustive completeness. But the an- 
swer seems not altogether satisfactory. 

A more fatal difficulty, however, is encountered b,y 
both schemes in attempting to give a consistent inter- 
pretation of the portion of-the narrative included in the 
third, fourth, and fifth days. Miller cannot put the 
third day earlier than the Carboniferous era, since 
no luxuriant and conspicuous forest vegetation charac- 
terized the earlier eras. He is, therefore, obliged to 

io8 



Schemes of Reconciliation Criticized 

maintain that not until after the Carboniferous did the 
earth's atmosphere become sufficiently clear for the 
heavenly bodies to become visible from the earth's sur- 
face. This is almost certainly false. The trilobites of 
the earliest Cambrian had elaborate compound eyes, 
like their successors, the Crustacea of the present day, 
indicating that they probably lived in good daylight. 
And it is immensely improbable that the vegetation of 
the Carboniferous — a vegetation which included flow- 
ering, as well as flowerless, plants — was developed 
without a gleam of direct sunlight. 

Dana and Guyot escape from this difficulty only to 
meet another even more fatal. Dana puts the clearing 
up of the atmosphere which characterizes the fourth 
day at the very beginning of the Paleozoic. Tht clos- 
ing work of the third day — the creation of plants — is 
understood to signify the absolute beginning of vege- 
table life — the introduction of the very simplest and 
lowest unicellular organisms, — which probably took 
place in pre-Cambrian time. The beginning of the 
history of animals was certainly substantially simulta- 
neous with that of plants. The lowest organisms do 
not exhibit the typical characters of either animals or 
plants. From that common starting-point of undiffer- 
entiated unicellularity the stream of evolution has 
flowed in two divergent directions. The lowest ani- 
mals must therefore have appeared simultaneously with 
the lowest plants. So far as can be inferred from fos- 
sils, the animal kingdom was expanded to something 
like its present range of development earlier than the 

109 



Genesis and Geology 

vegetable. Vertebrates appear earlier than phanero- 
gams, and birds and mammals before angiosperms. 
But the first chapter of Genesis puts the creation of 
plants on the third day, and that of the lower orders 
of animal life on the fifth, a period of indefinite length 
being interpolated between them. Dana and Guyot 
seek to escape this difficulty by interpreting the cre- 
ation of plants as referring to the absolute begin- 
ning of vegetation, and interpreting the creation 
of animals as referring to the expansion of animal 
life into varied types. This is obviously illegitimate. 
Parallel symbols must have parallel interpretations. 
The creation of plants and of animals respectively may 
mean absolute beginning, or it may mean full de- 
velopment ; but, whichever it means, it means the same 
thing in the two cases. On neither interpretation can 
the order in geology and that in Genesis be made to 
correspond. 

There is another, though somewhat less glaring, in- 
consistency of interpretation in the theory of Dana and 
Guyot. After explaining the work of the first day, in 
a manner so sublimely philosophical, as the beginning 
of molecular activity in matter, it is rather incongruous 
to interpret the fourth day's work in a sense so humbly 
visual and phenomenal as the breaking up of the clouds 
in the earth's atmosphere. In this respect Miller is 
more consistent. 

There are, indeed, other variations of the theory of 
days symbolic of indefinite periods, but it seems un- 
necessary to examine them in detail. The two schemes 

no 



Reconciliation Impossible 

which have been examined are sufficient to serve as 
representatives of the class. None of the others have 
been expounded and defended with greater resources 
of knowledge and abilit}'. None that I have examined 
seem more successful in evading the difficulties which 
beset the attempt to reconcile the order in Genesis with 
the order in geology. 

The conclusion which seems forced upon us is that 
no reconciliation between the geological record and 
that of Genesis is possible. The order of events in the 
first chapter of Genesis is not the order of events in 
geology. The order of events in Genesis is one which 
would naturally suggest itself to an unscientific but 
somewhat philosophical imagination. The inorganic 
arrangements of the earth precede for the most part 
the introduction of its organic inhabitants. Plants 
precede the animals that feed upon them, and the lower 
animals precede the higher. With the fondness for 
parallelism so characteristic of the Hebrew mind, each 
triad of days begins with a furnishing or an adjust- 
ment of the illumination of the scene; and each triad 
ends with a double work, of which the first part is the 
culmination of the closing era, and the second part a 
prophecy of the succeeding era. Or, according to an- 
other conception of the parallelism, the first triad gives 
us the different elemental realms, and the second triad 
the inhabitants of those realms. Thus the first day 
gives us the realm of cosmic light, and the fourth day 
the luminaries which may be poetically conceived as 
the inhabitants of that realm. The second day reveals 

III 



Genesis and Geology 

the realms of ocean and air, and the fifth day peoples 
those elements with fish and fowl. The third day pro- 
duces the terrestrial realm with its adornment of vege- 
tation, and the sixth day crowns the creation with 
terrestrial animal life. It is a profoundly thoughtful 
conception of the cosmos ; but it is not astronomy, nor 
geology, nor biology. 

If the order of events in the first chapter of Genesis 
cannot be reconciled with our present knowledge of 
geology, it is needless to say that the mode of crea- 
tion of man detailed in the second chapter cannot be 
reconciled with our present ideas in biology. Believers 
in evolution certainly cannot believe that the first man 
was molded out of the dust of the ground, nor that 
the first woman was made out of one of the man's ribs. 

And a reconciliation between Genesis and modern 
science is as unnecessary as it is impossible. The at- 
tempts at reconciliation have been necessitated solely 
by the post-Reformation dogma of the inerrancy of 
Scripture — a dogma which has formed no part of the 
faith of the Church Universal, which has been repu- 
diated by most of the greatest theologians of ancient 
and of modern times, and which is responsible for an 
endless amount of perverse ingenuity and sophistica- 
tion in the interpretation of both the Old and the New 
Testament. Let us fairly recognize that inspiration 
does not mean omniscience, and that errors in detail 
on the part of the Biblical writers, especially on sub- 
jects outside the sphere of morals and religion, do 
not invalidate the claims of Christianity as a revela- 

112 



Reconciliation Unnecessary 

tion. We shall then be freed from any anxiety as to 
reconciliation between the opening chapters of Genesis 
and modern science. In a spirit of purely literary and 
historical criticism, we can then consider what the 
original writers of the two narratives in Genesis, and 
what the compiler who put them into the Pentateuch, 
probably believed and intended to teach — whether the 
first narrative was intended to be history or poetry; 
whether the days were intended to have any chronolog- 
ical signification or not; whether the order of events 
was intended to be an order of time, or only an order 
of thought ; whether the second narrative was con- 
scions allegory, or myth erroneously believed by the 
writer or the compiler to be history. 

The Hebrew traditions of creation present points of 
parallelism to the Babylonian mythology, and much of 
the material of those traditions doubtless belongs to 
the common heritage of the Semitic peoples. They 
are no more true scientifically in their Hebrew form 
than in their other forms. That which is character- 
istic of the Biblical form of these traditions, and that 
wherein we recognize the divine inspiration of the He- 
brew seers, is the pure monotheistic theology and the 
lofty moral tone which have gained for these ancient 
documents the reverence of the ages. 

Relieved from the supposed necessity of finding in 
the Mosaic narratives a prophetic anticipation of mod- 
ern geological science, we shall be prepared more 
clearly to recognize their moral teaching. We shall 
find that each of the two narratives conveys its charac- 

113 



Genesis and Geology 

teristic lesson. The first narrative is a majestic psalm 
of praise to God as the Creator of the universe. In 
order to emphasize the antithesis between the mono- 
theism of the Hebrews and the universal polytheism 
around them, the particular objects of nature which 
were worshipped by pagan nations are expressly enu- 
merated as the creatures of God. He is the God above 
all gods. The arrangement in seven sections or days 
has obvious reference to the institution of the Sabbath. 
Through the allegorical or mythical form of the sec- 
ond narrative, we see the great truth set forth that 
God is the providential ruler and guide of his chil- 
dren, the author of the family relation and of social 
institutions, the inspirer of art and science and civiliza- 
tion. With the moral teaching of the psalm in the first 
chapter and the allegory in the second, science has no 
conflict and requires no reconciliation. 

Something should be said at this point in regard to 
the bearing of the geological and other evidences of 
the antiquity of man upon the Biblical chronology. 
The Biblical chronology from Adam to Abraham is 
based upon two genealogical tables contained respec- 
tively in the fifth and the eleventh chapter of Genesis. 
The former table gives the genealogy from Adam to 
Noah, the latter the genealogy from Noah to Abraham. 
The chronological data in both of these tables are of 
the same sort. Each of the persons mentioned is said 
to have lived a certain number of years and to have 
begotten a son. On the supposition that the numbers 
given are reliable, the sum of the series of numbers 

114 



Biblical Chronology 

representing the age of each patriarch at the time of 
the birth of the son named in the table will give us 
the length of time covered by the series of generations 
in question. It is from data of this sort that Arch- 
bishop Usher deduced the traditionally received date 
of the Creation of the world, 4004 B. C. The num- 
bers given in the Septuagint version differ considerably 
from those of the Hebrew, so that, if the computation 
is based upon the Septuagint, the date of the creation 
is about 1,400 years earlier. But, of course, the dif- 
ference of 1,400 years between the Hebrew and the 
Septuagint chronology is of no importance to geol- 
ogists. The antiquity of man, according to the teach- 
ings of geology and the other sciences which bear upon 
man's early history, requires not the addition of a 
few hundred years to the traditional date, but the mul- 
tiplication of the traditional period by a considerable 
factor. The Septuagint chronology is no more recon- 
cilable with science than the Hebrew chronology. 

The only aspect in which the difference between the 
numbers of the Hebrew and those of the Septuagint 
is of any importance, is in the indication it affords of 
the extensive corruption of the tradition or of the text. 
This indication is confirmed by the fact that in the 
Samaritan Pentateuch some of the numbers differ from 
both the Hebrew and the Septuagint. The fact that 
the texts differ so widely in their numerical statements 
makes it altogether probable that accidental or inten- 
tional alterations of the numbers in question have been 
so numerous that it is impossible for us to determine 

115 



Genesis and Geology 

what the orighial numbers were. That of itself indi- 
cates the unreHabiHty of the traditional chronology. 

A fact which indicates probable error in these gene- 
alogical tables is the enormous longevity attributed to 
many of the persons. SeveraLof them are said to have 
lived more than nine hundred years, and one of them, 
Methuselah, to have attained the age of 969 years. 
But, according to the teachings of biological science, a 
somewhat definite period of life is about as character- 
istic of each species of living creature as a somewhat 
definite limit of size. A man nine hundred years old 
would be as much of a monstrosity as a man whose 
stature was fifty feet. The former is about as in- 
credible as the latter. Some critics have supposed that 
these immense numbers were originally intended to 
represent the length of the reign of some dynasty, or 
the period of dominance of some family or tribe; and 
that, in the corruption of the original tradition, the 
period covered by a succession of related lives came to 
be mistaken for the lifetime of an individual. 

Whatever may have been the original form and 
the original meaning of these numerical statements, it 
appears substantially certain that, as they stand at pres- 
ent, they are utterly unreliable, and the chronology 
which is based upon them is absolutely worthless. 
This, of course, is fatal to the dogma of scriptural in- 
errancy ; and I believe the geological discoveries which 
have established the great antiquity of man have been 
exceedingly useful to the church, in the very fact that 
they have revealed a contradiction between the conclu- 

116 



Antediluvian Chronology Worthless 

sions of science and the text of Scripture so trenchant, 
and apparently so incapable of being explained away 
by any device of exegesis, as to expose most clearly 
the falsity of the dogma of inerrancy. Apart from the 
dogma of the inerrancy of the Bible, the question of 
the date of the origin of man has obviously no theo- 
logical significance whatsoever. 

Sharp and unqualified as the contradiction appears 
between the scientific teaching of the antiquity of man 
and the text of Scripture, some exegetes have yet in- 
sisted that the great antiquity of man may be admitted 
without denying the doctrine of inerrancy. The chro- 
nology, it is said, may be lergthened as much as may 
be necessary by the simple supposition that some links 
are omitted in the chain of genealogy. It must seem 
to a mind unbiased by dogmatic prepossessions that 
those exegetes use words in a peculiarly accommo- 
dated sense. It is quite intelligible that a writer 
who was not inerrant might have incomplete informa- 
tion in regard to a line of genealogy, and might de- 
scribe one person as the son of another when he was 
really his grandson or his great-grandson; and it is 
quite possible that many, if not all, of the names men- 
tioned in those genealogical tables may be names of 
actual persons who were in one hereditary line, though 
various links in the chain of the generations have been 
omitted. Such a genealogical table, as the work of a 
writer capable of error and possessed of incomplete 
knowledge, would be perfectly intelligible. But, when 
a learned exegete tells us that an inerrant writer can 

117 



Genesis and Geology 

declare that a man lived an hundred sixty and two 
years and begat his great-great-great-grandson, the 
common mind is left wonderingly to inquire whether 
words have any definite meaning or not. 

Another point in which geology and other sciences 
require modification of traditional beliefs in regard to 
Scripture history, is the Noachian Deluge. As we 
have already seen,'^' the Noachian Deluge was formerly 
supposed to have been an event of tremendous signifi- 
cance in the history of the earth as well as in the his- 
tory of man. For about a century and a half the 
opinion was widely held that the whole mass of the 
fossiliferous rocks was deposited by the Noachian 
Deluge. Even after that notion had been dissipated, 
the belief was still retained that the waters of the flood 
actually covered the whole surface of the earth. In 
the eighteenth century it was a common undertaking 
of Biblical students to calculate the cubic contents of 
the ark, and to prove that its capacity was ample for 
the residence of pairs of all species of animals, and for 
the storage of a supply of food for them for a num- 
ber of months. So long as people neither knew nor 
cared about the animals of other parts of the world 
than Europe and western Asia, nor about the countless 
multitudes of species of insects and others of the 
smaller and less conspicuous forms of life even in that 
region, these conclusions looked sufficiently plausible. 
But, in the light of our present knowledge of the num- 
ber and distribution of animal species, the preservation 

* See pages 45, 90. 
118 



The Noachian Deluge 

of representatives of all terrestrial species in the ark 
becomes absolutely incredible. The conception of 
sloths, tortoises, and snails promenading in pairs across 
the Atlantic Ocean from South America, to find at 
last a home in the ark somewhere in the valley of the 
Euphrates, involves a combination of conditions whose 
improbability is simply colossal. From the standpoint 
of dynamical geology, the supposition of such crustal 
movements as would cause a universal submergence of 
continents and mountains at any time in recent geo- 
logical history w^ould be utterly incredible. 

But, while the supposition of a deluge universal as 
regards the earth is utterly incredible, it is, of course, 
perfectly possible that there may have been at an early 
period of human history a deluge universal as regards 
the human race. Whether we suppose the race to have 
originated from a single pair, in accordance with He- 
brew tradition, or (as on biological grounds would be 
far more probable) from a considerable number of 
individuals evolved to the condition of humanity at 
about the same time, it is probably true that the race 
in its origin was confined within pretty narrow geo- 
graphical limits, and that its wide diffusion over the 
surface of the earth is the result of later migration. 
There would be, then, nothing in itself incredible in 
the notion that, before the race had become widely 
diffused, a deluge, such as might be caused by earth- 
quake waves or even by a violent hurricane, might de- 
stroy the whole race, with the exception of a few in- 
dividuals or a single family, who might find safety in 

119 



Genesis and Geology 

some sort of a boat. Whether there is any adequate 
evidence for beHeving in the actual occurrence of such 
a catastrophe, is another question. 

The behef that the Noachian Deluge was universal 
as regards man, is based chiefly upon the existence of 
wide-spread traditions of an event more or less similar 
to that recorded in Genesis. All the way, in fact, from 
China to North and South America, we find traditions 
of a deluge in which the whole human race was de- 
stroyed, with the exception of a single family or a 
small number of persons who escaped on some sort of 
boat or raft. In very many cases the tradition includes 
also the idea that those few survivors were enabled 
to escape by some sort of supernatural warning which 
they owed to the special favor of the gods. It has 
been hastily assumed that all these deluge traditions 
must refer to the same event. Even where the mythol- 
ogy of a single people, as in the case of the ancient 
Greeks, preserves the tradition of several distinct del- 
uges, it has been assumed that they must all be con- 
sidered as more or less distorted representations of 
the one Noachian Deluge. This assumption, however, 
is certainly not supported by any adequate evidence, 
and is, in all probability, false. In an early stage of 
civilization, when there was little opportunity for inter- 
communication between the inhabitants of different 
districts of country, the few survivors of a district 
which had been inundated and mostly depopulated by 
an earthquake wave or some other catastrophe, would 
naturally start a tradition in which they would be rep- 

120 



Traditions of a Deluge 

resented as the sole survivors from a universal de- 
struction of the human race. In some cases, there are 
not wanting in the deluge traditions local features 
which pretty plainly indicate that the event upon which 
the tradition was founded occurred in a locality widely 
removed from the scene of the Noachian Deluge. The 
Chinese tradition of a deluge is, in all probability, due 
to one of the numerous migrations of the River Hoang 
Ho across its vast delta plain. The movements of that 
uneasy river have again and again within historic times 
caused immense loss of life. When two peoples are 
blended into one by conquest and subsequent inter- 
marriage, the traditions of one race are often to a 
greater or less extent adopted by the other. There 
is reason to suspect that the traditions of a deluge in 
some savage tribes are due to the influence of Jesuit 
missionaries, w^ho, in the palmy days of that order, 
penetrated to the most distant parts of the earth, and 
who, though they did not succeed in producing very 
enlightened Christians or developing a very high style 
of Christian civilization, did succeed in teaching ef- 
fectively the stories of Hebrew tradition. Even if a 
deluge tradition were universal, the fact would not 
prove a universal deluge.* 

But, though deluge traditions are widely diffused, 
they are by no means universal. No deluge tradition 
has been reported from any Negro people, except the 
inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, who are prob- 

* See the excellent analysis of deluge traditions in Hastings, Dictionary of 
the Bible, art. Flood, by F. H. Woods. 

121 



Genesis and Geology 

ably closely related to the Negro race. The ancient 
Egyptians, who, though they lived in Africa, were not 
of Negro but of Caucasian race, had no deluge tradi- 
tion. There is, then, obviously no satisfactory evidence 
of a universal deluge afforded by tradition. 

It may be affirmed without any hesitation that a 
deluge universal as regards the human race, at the date 
given by the traditional chronology, B. C. 2348, is 
utterly incredible. As has been noticed in the discus- 
sion of the antiquity of man, it is probable that the 
civilizations of Babylonia, Egypt, and China extend 
back to or beyond that date. A universal deluge could 
only have been possible at a time vastly earlier. The 
universality of the Noachian Deluge as regards the hu- 
man race can be maintained only on the supposition 
that the chronology of the fifth chapter of Genesis, 
based on the genealogy from Adam to Noah, is sub- 
stantially correct, or that its error is on the side of a 
time estimate too long rather than too short ; and that, 
on the other hand, the chronology of the eleventh chap- 
ter of Genesis, based on the genealogy from Noah to 
Abraham, gives a time estimate which is only a small 
fraction of the true duration. It is needless to say that 
this twofold supposition is extremely improbable. On 
general principles, the earlier genealogy should be the 
less, rather than the more, nearly complete. 

It is evident, in general, that we have in the book of 
Genesis nothing that approaches the character of re- 
liable history till about the time of Abraham. The 
comparison of the teachings of science with the record 

122 



NoACHiAN Deluge not Universal 

of Genesis leads us to the conclusion that the date and 
method of creation of the earth and of man, and the 
early history of the human race, are not matter of di- 
vine revelation, but matter for scientific investigation. 
An agreement between the results of scientific investi- 
gation and Hebrew tradition is neither to be sought nor 
expected. 

123 



The Unity of the Universe 



IIL — The Unity of the Universe 

The third and most important of the characteristic 
ideas entering into the scientific conception of the uni- 
verse is that of the unity of the universe. We have 
aheady referred to Newton's discovery of universal 
gravitation, which has probably been more important 
in its influence upon human thought than any other 
single discovery in the whole history of science. New- 
ton's discovery was the completion and culmination of 
that series of astronomical discoveries which gave to 
mankind a true view of the relation of the earth to the 
heavenly bodies, and a somewhat adequate conception 
of the immensity of the universe. But that discovery 
of Newton's was perhaps even more important in an- 
other aspect as the beginning of the development of 
the idea of the unity of nature. 

In the century just ended, the investigations of sci- 
ence have revealed, with a fullness not dreamed of 
before, a threefold unity in nature — a unity of sub- 
stance, a unity of force, and a unity of process. 

In two ways we are able to learn somewhat of the 
chemical constitution of parts of the universe outside 
of the earth. The extra-terrestrial origin of meteorites 
has come to be universally admitted ; and the fact that 
those wanderers through space contain no element 
which is not known to terrestrial chemistry is pro- 
foundly significant in its teaching of the unity of sub- 

124 



The Conservation of Energy 

stance throughout the universe. The spectroscope has 
afforded us a method of investigating the constitution 
of luminous bodies, and so has given us some knowl- 
edge of the chemical composition, not only of the sun, 
but also of the immensely more remote stars and neb- 
ulae. In all these bodies whose light has been subjected 
to spectrum analysis, elements have been discovered 
which are well known upon the earth. In the solar 
eclipse of 1868, a conspicuous yellow line was observed 
in the spectrum of the solar protuberances which could 
not be identified with any terrestrial element then 
known. The hypothetical element to which that yel- 
low line was due was named helium. Within the last 
few years that element has been recognized in several 
rare minerals which occur upon the earth. Thus it 
appears that one of the rarer elements in terrestrial 
chemistry was first discovered in the sun. 

The Conservation of Energy* 

The idea of a unity of force in the universe has 
taken shape in the modern scientific doctrine of the 
conservation of energy. 

That we may understand the significance of the se- 
ries of scientific researches which have culminated in 
the development of the doctrine of the conservation of 



* Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences^ gives fully the history of the 
phlogistic theory, of the development of modern chemistry, and of the undula- 
tory theory of light. Tyndall, Heat Considered as a Mode of Motion, gives a 
brilliant account of the dynamical theory of heat. Youmans, The Co7-retation 
and Conservatioji of Forces, gives in convenient form a collection of early ex- 
positions of the doctrine of conservation of energy. See also Stewart, The 
Conservation of Energy. 



The Conservation of Energy 

energy, let us ask ourselves what happens in the famil- 
iar occurrence of the combustion of wood, or coal, 
or any other combustible. There is a conspicuous evo- 
lution of light and heat, the original substance disap- 
pears, but some sort of residue is left, which may, ac- 
cording to circumstances, be solid, liquid, or gaseous. 
But what is the real nature and meaning of the process ? 
Some of the ancient philosophers, in their semi-mytho- 
logical mode of interpreting the facts of nature, said 
that the element of fire, imprisoned in the combustible 
substance, was set free, and escaped into the empyrean, 
the lofty abode of the pure and changeless element of 
fire. 

The first definite scientific theory of the process of 
combustion was given by Stahl in 1697. According 
to his view, the essential thing in the process of com- 
bustion was the escaping from the combustible of a 
substance called phlogiston. According to the phlo- 
gistic theory, the phlogiston could escape from one 
body only when some other body was ready to absorb 
it and enter into combination with it. In ordinary 
cases of combustion, the phlogiston which left the va- 
rious combustibles passed into the atmosphere, which 
was supposed to be very far from saturation with 
phlogiston. When oxygen was discovered, it was 
found to be a much more energetic supporter of com- 
bustion than ordinary atmospheric air. This was at 
once explained by the supposition that oxygen was des- 
titute of phlogiston, or at least more nearly so than 
ordinary air, and possessed therefore a more intense 

126 



The Theory of Phlogiston 

avidity for that substance. Oxygen was accordingly 
named by Priestley, its discoverer, "dephlogisticated 
air." It was, however, a puzzling and inexplicable 
fact that in some cases it could readily be shown (we 
now know it is always true) that the substance result- 
ing from the combustion is heavier than the original 
combustible. It was certainly a paradoxical condition 
that the loss of one of its constituents should increase 
the weight of a body. 

The abandonment of the phlogistic theory and the 
establishment of the modern chemical theory were 
chiefly due to the researches of the French chemist, 
Lavoisier, whose results were given to the world in a 
series of memoirs commencing about 1775. As every- 
one now knows, the chemical change which takes place 
in ordinary cases of combustion is not the loss of any 
part of the substance of the combustible, but the union 
of that substance with oxygen. In Lavoisier's experi- 
ments, mercury was made alternately to take on oxy- 
gen, being thus converted into the red oxide of mer- 
cury, and to give off its oxygen, and thus be restored 
to its metallic condition. Since the time of Lavoisier 
there has been no question about the purely chemical 
side of the process of combustion. We have learned 
that in all physical and chemical changes there is 
neither creation nor destruction of matter. Complex 
molecules may be broken up into simpler constituents, 
or elements may be united into complex molecules ; but 
in all chemical changes the quantity of matter remains 
constant. Every chemical process may be expressed 

127 



The Conservation of Energy 

in the form of an equation, in which the atomic sym- 
bols on one side of the equation are so grouped as to 
represent the arrangement of the atoms before the re- 
action in question, and the symbols on the other side 
of the equation are so grouped as to represent the ar- 
rangement of the atoms after the reaction. The num- 
ber of atoms of each element will be identical on the 
two sides of the equation. Thus we find perpetual 
change in form, but neither increase nor diminution in 
the quantity of matter. That, in the broad view, was 
the truth taught the world by the researches of 
Lavoisier. 

But the purely chemical theory of Lavoisier gave 
no account of the heat and light which are so frequent 
accompaniments of chemical change, and which, in or- 
dinary cases of combustion, are the most conspicuous 
phenomena of the process. It was a long time before 
any satisfactory explanation of these phenomena and 
of their relation to chemical change could be given. Li 
the meanwhile, heat and light haunted like ghosts alike 
the laboratory of the chemist and physicist and the 
workshop of the artisan. Like their fellow ghost, elec- 
tricity, they were remarkably conspicuous in their 
manifestations, though utterly inexplicable in their na- 
ture. They were supposed to be material things, 
though destitute of weight. The most delicate balance 
could detect no difference between the weight of a 
piece of cold iron and that of the same piece of iron 
when hot. They were called ^'imponderable bodies,*' 
or ''imponderable agents," the latter phrase being a 

128 



The Imponderable Agents 

convenient one, as not committing its user to any 
theory in regard to their nature. 

But, though the prevalent belief at the end of the 
eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century 
was that light, heat, and electricity are material bodies, 
their lack of power to respond in any measurable de- 
gree to the attraction of gravitation could not but sug- 
gest doubts in regard to their material nature. As long 
ago as 1690 Huyghens had taught that light was an 
undulation. His contemporary, the great Sir Isaac 
Newton, seriously considered the question whether 
light might not be some form of undulatory move- 
ment, but concluded that the phenomena with which 
he was acquainted were, on the whole, best accounted 
for by the supposition that light consisted of extremely 
minute material particles. The mighty influence of 
Newton's great name served in this case to maintain 
a false theory in general acceptance for a century and 
a half. It was not, indeed, until the beginning of the 
nineteenth century that the undulatory theory of light 
attracted general attention. I'he views of Huyghens 
were for the most part ignored until they were pre- 
sented in new form by Thomas Young in 1801 and by 
Fresnel in 181 5. Dr. Young was well-nigh a universal 
genius, busying himself with all sorts of investigations, 
from the theory of light and color to the deciphering 
of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Fresnel, though possessed 
of less varied and versatile genius than Young, was a 
consummate mathematician, and by his great mathe- 
matical ability was enabled to develop the undulatory 

129 



The Conservation of Energy 

theory of light in a form so ingenious and beautiful 
as to compel the respectful attention of all who were 
competent to understand his reasoning. For many 
years, however, after the publication of the first of 
Fresnel's memoirs, the conflict between the two theo- 
ries continued. But the undulatory theory was stead- 
ily gaining, and the corpuscular theory losing ground. 
As the knowledge of the phenomena of light in- 
creased, and it became necessary to account for polari- 
zation, double refraction, and other phenomena which 
were investigated, it was found that they could be 
accounted for simply and consistently on the undula- 
tory theory, while the corpuscular theory could only 
account for them by the accumulation of cumbersome 
and unsatisfactory hypotheses. The story of the prog- 
ress of the undulatory theory of light was analogous 
to that of the progress of the Copernican astronomy. 
The Ptolemaic astronomy could indeed invent some 
combination of epicycles to formulate each newly dis- 
covered planetary irregularity; but no complex sup- 
plementary hypotheses were required by Kepler's laws 
and Newton's theory of gravitation. 

As a consequence of Fresnel's theory, Sir William 
Rowan Hamilton predicted the remarkable phenomena 
called respectively external and internal conical refrac- 
tion, which had never been observed until an experi- 
ment was devised by Humphrey Lloyd to test Hamil- 
ton's prediction. Such prediction of phenomena hither- 
to unobserved is, of course, very strong confirmation 
of the truth of a theory. But it was not until 1850 

130 



The Undulatory Theory of Light 

that a crucial experiment was devised by which a defi- 
nite conclusion in regard to the two theories could be 
reached. The familiar fact that rays of light passing 
from a rarer into a denser medium are refracted to- 
ward a line perpendicular to the limiting surface, was 
explained plausibly enough by each of the two con- 
tending theories; but the explanation on the basis of 
the corpuscular theory involved the assumption that 
light moves more rapidly through the denser than 
through the rarer medium, while the explanation given 
by the undulatory theory involved the contradictory 
assumption that light moves less rapidly through the 
denser than through the rarer medium. If, then, an 
experiment could be devised which would measure the 
velocity of light respectively in air and in water, the 
result would be a decisive victory of one or the other 
of the contending theories. The motion of light is so 
inconceivably rapid that its measurement within a 
small distance such as could be available for experi- 
ment seemed almost impossible; but the difficulties 
were overcome by the experimental skill of Foucault 
in 1850, and the definite determination that the velocity 
of light in water is less than its velocity in air estab- 
lished conclusively the undulatory theory. 

In the case of heat, as in the case of light, it was 
long ago suspected that it might prove to be a mode 
of motion, but the series of investigations by which 
that conclusion was established belongs almost exclu- 
sively to the first half of the nineteenth century. As 
long ago as 1620, Lord Bacon, in his "Novum Or- 

131 



The Conservation of Energy 

ganum," declared heat to be a species of motion. 
Bacon tells us explicitly that he does not mean that 
heat can be produced by motion, or that motion can be 
produced by heat; but that he means absolutely that 
heat is a form of motion. But it was not until the very 
close of the eighteenth century that the question of the 
nature of heat was brought prominently before the sci- 
entific world by the experiments of Count Rumford. 
Count Rumford was an American whose name was 
Benjamin Thompson. He left his native country be- 
cause he took the loyalist side on the outbreak of the 
American Revolution; and in 1798 he was living in 
Alunich, and was in the service of the Bavarian Gov- 
ernment as Minister of War. He had charge of the 
manufacture of cannon for the Bavarian army, and his 
attention was specially called to the heat produced in 
the boring of cannon. The fragments of metal that 
came out of the bore were observed to have a high 
temperature, and Rumford began to reason as to the 
source of the heat. Those chips of metal had appar- 
ently suffered no change, having the same capacity for 
heat as other pieces of similar metal. In some of his 
experimental investigations, Rumford caused a piston 
to revolve in a cylinder enclosed in a box of water, and 
heated the water to boiling by the friction of the piston 
in the cylinder. There appeared to be no limit to the 
amount of heat which might thus be developed by fric- 
tion. The inference which Rumford drew from his 
experiments, and which seems unquestionably a sound 
one, may be stated in his own words: "Anything 

132 



The Mechanical Equivalent of Heat 

which an insulated body or system of bodies can con- 
tinue to furnish without Hmitation cannot possibly be 
a material substance." In the early part of the nine- 
teenth century, Sir Humphry Davy was experimenting 
in other ways with reference to the question of the 
nature of heat, and reached the same conclusions as 
Rum ford. The work of Rum ford and Davy found its 
completion in the determination of the mechanical 
equivalent of heat by Joule in 1843. Joule determined 
by a series of experiments that the amount of heat that 
will raise the temperature of a pound of water one 
degree Fahrenheit is the quantitative equivalent of the 
mechanical work of lifting a pound 'j'j2 feet, or 772 
pounds one foot, in opposition to gravitation. In 
technical language, the mechanical equivalent of heat 
is said to be yj2 footpounds. This definite quantita- 
tive result is obviously a great step in advance of the 
purely qualitative conclusions of Rumford and Davy. 
They had reached the conclusion that heat could not 
be a material body, and must therefore be some sort 
of motion. Joule established an exact quantitative ra- 
tio between that form of molecular motion which we 
call heat, and the forms of molar motion with which 
we are acquainted in ordinary mechanics. 

It is fair to say that, in the announcement of the 
mechanical equivalent of heat. Joule was slightly an- 
ticipated by a German physician named Mayer. May- 
er's conclusion, published in 1842, was reached by a 
very different method from that of Joule, and was 
based in part on somewhat speculative reasoning. 



The Conservation of Energy 

Joule's conclusion was based upon a course of very 
rigorous experimentation. It has generally been felt 
that the patient experimentation of Joule established 
the important doctrine of the mechanical equivalent of 
heat on a sounder basis than the brilliant speculation 
of Mayer. And so, by common consent, in spite of 
the priority of Mayer, the number yy2, which ex- 
presses the ratio between heat and mechanical motion 
has been called by the name of Joule, and is expressed 
in formulas by the initial of his name. 

Thus, about the middle of the nineteenth century, 
light and heat were both conclusively shown to be not 
material bodies, but modes of motion. We have in- 
deed come to regard light and heat only as different 
phenomenal manifestations of the same energy. From 
the sun and from other incandescent bodies, waves of 
radiant energy stream out constantly in vast complex- 
ity, ranging in wave-length through a very long gamut. 
All these waves of energy, long and short, are capable 
of producing the phenomena of heat. Those waves of 
energy which fall within a certain limit as regards 
wave-length, are capable, in addition, of exciting, when 
they impinge upon the retina of the eye, the sensation 
of light and color; but the difference between these 
luminous waves and the waves of greater and lesser 
wave-length beyond the limits of the visible spectrum 
is only physiological. It is only that our eyes are able 
to derive the sensation of color from waves which fall 
within those limits of wave-length and not from longer 
or shorter waves. 

134 



Forms of Energy Mutually Convertible 

Joule and Mayer proved a definite quantitative re- 
lation between heat and mechanical motion. The truth 
which they proved was quickly expanded into the broad 
induction that all forms of physical energy are thus 
quantitatively related and are mutually convertible. 
The molar motion of ordinary mechanics, the molecu- 
lar movements of heat and electricity, the atomic move- 
ments which form the subject of chemical science, are 
all quantitatively related and mutually convertible. 
Heat may be developed by friction of masses of matter, 
or by collisions of atoms which rush together in chem- 
ical combination. The energy derived from the com- 
bustion of carbon in a steam engine may move a train 
of cars or drive the machinery of a factory, or may be 
converted into electricity, and that electricity in turn 
may be converted by an electric motor into mechanical 
motion. And thus is reached a broad conclusion in 
regard to energy parallel to that reached by Lavoisier 
in regard to matter. As Lavoisier showed that in all 
chemical changes there is neither creation nor destruc- 
tion of matter, but only rearrangement, so we now be- 
lieve that in all physical and chemical changes there is 
neither creation nor destruction of energy, but endless 
metamorphosis of energy into different forms. 

In these revelations of physics there comes back to 
us in a new form the truth which was represented in 
distorted form by the old phlogistic theory, and which 
was ignored by the purely chemical theory of Lavoisier 
and his followers. The believers in the phlogistic the- 
ory recognized in the emission of light and heat from 

135 



The Conservation of Energy 

the burning combustible a sign that something was 
going out of it. That something they wrongly inter- 
preted as a material substance. There is indeed some- 
thing which the burning combustible loses; but that 
something is no material substance, but potential 
energy. 

It is impossible to recognize the truth of the con- 
servation of energy in the realm of inorganic matter 
without raising the question whether that law also 
holds good in regard to the processes of the living body 
as seen in plants and animals. It had been in general 
vaguely supposed that the processes which go on in 
living bodies were radically different from the purely 
physical and chemical processes of the inanimate 
world ; and, until the middle of the nineteenth century, 
such expressions as *Vital force" were in frequent use, 
to express the unknown agency to which were due the 
peculiar phenomena of living beings. But the genius 
of Mayer had scarcely got hold of the doctrine of the 
mechanical equivalent of heat before he perceived the 
far-reaching conclusions to which the theory of the 
conservation of energy would lead. Only three years 
after his announcement of the mechanical equivalent 
of heat, he published a remarkable paper on the move- 
ments of animals and plants, in which he maintains 
that the energy manifested in those movements is de- 
rived from the chemical changes that take place in the 
food. He had, in fact, already grasped the modern 
doctrine that the animal body is not a creator of force, 
but only a machine by which the energy of chemical 

136 



Correlation of Physical and V^ital Forces 

action is converted into the energy of heat and me- 
chanical motion. 

Mayer's essay attracted comparatively little atten- 
tion. It was published in a rather obscure German 
periodical, and found few readers outside of Germany ; 
and the world was not quite ready to accept its far- 
reaching conclusions. The classical memoir ''On the 
Conservation of Force," by Helmholtz, was published 
in 1847. I" t^^G conclusion of this essay, the applica- 
tion of the law of conservation to the processes going 
on in living bodies w^as briefly but distinctly an- 
nounced. Still earlier Helmholtz had been engaged in 
researches on the consumption of matter and on the 
evolution of heat in muscular action, which fore- 
shadowed the great generalization. William B. Car- 
penter, the English physiologist, published his essay 
'*On the Mutual Relations of the Vital and Physical 
Forces" in 1850.* A few years later, in 1859, sub- 
stantially the same views were published in this coun- 
try by Joseph Le Conte,-}- who, though chiefly known 
as a geologist, made important and valuable contribu- 
tions to other branches of science. 

According to our present views of the dynamics of 
living bodies, the growth of vegetation, which under 
ordinary conditions takes place only under the influ- 
ence of sunlight, is due to the radiant energy of the 

* Philosophical Trajtsactions, 1850. Another essay by Carpenter, published 
a few years later, is contained in Youmans, The Correlation atid Conserva- 
(io?i 0/ Forces. 

^ American Journal 0/ Science and Arts ^ 2d series, vol. xxviii, p. 305. Le 
Conte's article, in revised form, was republished in the appendix of Stewart, 
The Conservation of Energy. 



The Conservation of Energy 

sunbeams. The energy of the sunbeams tears asunder 
the molecules of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and 
the carbon is stored up in vegetable tissue, while the 
oxygen is given back to the atmosphere. In the storing 
of carbon in the vegetable tissues there is also a storing 
of potential energy; and in its subsequent oxidation, 
in the plant itself or in an animal which has eaten the 
plant, the potential energy may become energy of heat 
or of motion. The germination of the seed, which 
takes place in subterranean darkness, the varied move- 
ments which are exhibited in some degree by plants 
and in vastly greater degree by animals, the develop- 
ment of heat which maintains the temperature of many 
organisms far above that of the surrounding medium, 
are all the result of the oxidation — the virtual com- 
bustion — of the combustible materials stored up in veg- 
etable and animal tissues. The animal body is, then, a 
machine in which, as in the steam engine, the combus- 
tion of carbon and other combustible elements is made 
to furnish energy which reveals itself in heat and me- 
chanical motion. In one respect, indeed, the animal 
machine is very different from the steam engine. It 
is a self-repairing machine. It is as though we could 
feed the steam engine, not only with coal for fuel, but 
with iron and brass and other materials which might 
be necessary to repair the waste of the working parts 
of the machine. So, in the animal body, a part of the 
food serves as fuel for the production of energy, but an- 
other part serves to rebuild the continually wasting tis- 
sues of the body, and so to keep the machine in repair. 

138 



The Animal Body a Machine 

But, though the animal body is vastly more com- 
plex than any machine of human invention, there is 
no reasonable doubt that the law of the conservation 
of energy holds sway in the animal body precisely as 
in other heat engines.''' 

But we must recognize not only that muscular ac- 
tion comes within the scope of the law of the conserva- 
tion of energy, but that the same is true of the more 
subtile processes involved in the operations of nerve 
and brain. It has long been known that there are cer- 
tain obvious analogies between nerve force and other 
physical forces. The nerve force is not a spiritual 
potency which diffuses itself without relation to mate- 
rial conditions. It is transmitted along the nerve with 
a measurable velocity, as electricity is transmitted 
along a conducting wire. The velocity of the nerve 
force is, in fact, considerably less than that of the 
transmission of electricity along a good conductor, be- 
ing in warm-blooded animals only about one hundred 
feet per second, and in cold-blooded animals consid- 
erably less. 

* The most nearly complete experimental proof of the application of the law 
of conservation of energ:y to the human body has been obtained by the experi- 
ments with the Atwater-Rosa calorimeter, conducted by Professors Atwater, 
Rosa, and Benedict, and their associates, in the laboratory of Wesleyan Uni- 
versity. The plan of these experiments involved very accurate determination 
of the chemical composition and potential energ:y of the food consumed, the 
amounts of carbon and nitrogen discharged from the body, and the amount of 
energy given off by the body as heat and n-echanical work. The average re- 
sult of forty-five experiments, extending over periods amounting in the aggre- 
gate to one liundred and forty-three days, was that the energy determined as 
given off from the body did not differ bv any measurable quantity from the 
calculated potential ener;:iy of the materials oxidized in the body. A discus- 
sion of some of these experiments may be found in Physical Review, vol. ix, 
pp. 129, 214, vol. X, p. 129; Bulletin No. 109 of the Ofifice of Experiment 
Stations, U. S. Department of Agriculture. The latest and most complete 
account of these investigations is given in Bulletin No. 136 of same series. 



The Conservation of Energy 

Somewhat is known also in regard to the physical 
changes going on in the brain. The blood coming from 
the brain has a higher temperature than the arterial 
blood, and contains less oxygen and more carbon 
dioxide.* Some part of the potential energy of the 
nutritive materials supplied to the brain is converted 
into heat. Increased activity of thought or excitement 
of feeling is accompanied by a more rapid blood cur- 
rent through the brain. The more rapid chemical 
changes find expression in a rise of temperature which 
can be detected by the application of thermo-electric 
apparatus to the outside of the head.f The chemical 
changes going on in the active brain are accompanied 
by changes in the appearance of the cells of the gray 
matter, which are perfectly recognizable under the 
microscope when cells from the brains of animals killed 
after a night's sleep are compared with cells from the 
brains of animals of the same species killed after a 
day's activity.! 

The conception of the unity of nature which is in- 
volved in the doctrine of the conservation of energy 
extends not only through all space, but through all 
time. The vegetable tissues whose remains, preserved 
from complete decomposition, are stored up in the form 
of coal, were produced by the agency of the sunbeams 
that shone upon the earth tens of millions of years 
ago in the Carboniferous era. Then as now the en- 

*H. H. Donaldson, in Howell, American Text-book of Physiology^ p. 736. 

t J. S. Lombard, in Proceedings of Royal Society of London, vol. xxvii, 
p. 462 ; Ladd, Eleinents of Physiological Psychology, p. 242 ; Luys, The Brain 
and its Functions, p. 76. 

\ H. H. Donaldson, in Howell, American Text-book 0/ Physiology, p. 631. 

140 



Fossil Sunbeams 

ergy of the sunbeams tore asunder the molecules of 
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and stored up the 
carbon in living tissues; then as now that energy of 
the sunbeam was converted into the potential energy 
of the carbon atoms. And so, when we warm our 
dwellings by the burning of coal, and light them by 
the burning of gas derived from coal, or by electricity 
produced by a dynamo which is run by a coal-fed 
steam engine, we are warming and lighting our dwell- 
ings with the sunbeams of the Carboniferous era. The 
flux of energy from one form to another is continuous, 
but the stock of energy remains unchanged through 
measureless eons. 

The only point in which the doctrine of the conserva- 
tion of energy has been supposed to come into collision 
with theological belief is in regard to the application 
of the doctrine to the actions of the nervous system. 
When we come to recognize that the processes which 
go on in the human brain, and which reveal themselves 
in our states of consciousness, are correlated with 
purely physical and chemical changes which go on in 
the inorganic world, the question is inevitably sug- 
gested, whether there is any other than a material 
element involved in those cerebral changes; whether 
there is a spiritual entity distinct from the material 
organism, while using that material organism as a 
means to its ends, or whether our psychological expe- 
riences are simply and solely affections of the material 
organism. It will be convenient for us, however, to 
defer the discussion of this question for the present. 

141 



Evolution 

The same question will be suggested to us from an- 
other point of view, when we come to consider the 
bearings of the doctrine of organic evolution ; and the 
question can be better discussed when we have before 
us all the scientific facts which may be supposed to have 
some bearing upon it. 

Evolution 

We now come to the consideration of the third phase 
of the idea of the unity of nature characterstic of mod- 
ern science; namely, the continuity of process in the 
history of nature. The one word which expresses this 
idea in modern scientific thought, and which, more 
than any other word, gives utterance to the distinctive 
characteristic of the intellectual life of our time, is the 
word "Evolution. '^ The modern development of the 
idea of evolution will be considered in three phases: 
first, astronomical evolution ; second, geological evolu- 
tion ; third, biological evolution. 

THE NEBULAR THEORY* 

The doctrine of evolution in astronomy is repre- 
sented by the nebular theory. 

The general conception of the origin of the solar 
system which we call the nebular theory, was inde- 
pendently proposed by Kant in 1755, and by Laplace 
in 1796. Speculations more or less crude, tending 
somewhat in the same direction, may be found in Swe- 

* Ball, The Earth's Beginning ; Gore, The Visible Universe; Newcomb, 
The Stars, a Study of the Universe ; Winchell, World-Life, or Comparative 
Geology. 

142 



Coincidences in the Planetary Movements 

denborg, Buffon, and other writers in the eighteenth 
century. Though Laplace had been anticipated by 
Kant, and in some degree by others, the theory is most 
commonly accredited to him; and rightly, for the 
credit of a scientific theory belongs not to hirn in whose 
mind the idea first arises as a conjecture, but to him 
who gives to the idea so definite a form, and who sup- 
ports it with such wealth of knowledge, as to secure 
for it consideration and acceptance. 

The evidence upon which Laplace based the nebular 
theory is found in the remarkable coincidences which 
exist in the movements of the planets. A certain 
amount of coincidence in the planetary movements 
would, indeed, be necessitated by the Newtonian theory 
of gravitation, independently of any conception as to 
the origin of the planets. Whatever the origin of a 
planet might have been, the attraction of the central 
sun would constrain it to move in an orbit whose form 
would be some one of the conic sections, and to move 
with a velocity conforming to the law that the radius 
vector describes equal areas in equal times. But the 
actual movements of the planets show a far greater 
amount of coincidence than this. Their orbits are all 
ellipses of very small eccentricity, departing but little 
from the form of the circle. With the exception of 
some of the asteroids, their orbits are nearly in the 
plane of the sun's equator. They all revolve in the 
same direction in which the sun rotates. The planets 
all rotate upon their axes; and the planes of their ro- 
tation, with the exception, probably, of Uranus, are 

143 



The Nebular Theory 

nearly coincident with tlie planes of their revolution. 
With the exception, probably, of Uranus and Neptune, 
the direction of their rotation is the same as the direc- 
tion of their revolution. Most of the planets are ac- 
companied by a satellite or by a number of satellites. 
The direction of revolution of the satellites is believed 
to be in every case the same as the direction of the 
rotation of their respective planets, and the planes of 
the orbits of the satellites are nearly coincident with 
the equatorial planes of the planets. These coinci- 
dences are exceedingly suggestive of the idea that the 
planets were once parts of a common mass, and that 
their revolution around the sun is an inheritance of the 
rotation in which they shared when still included in 
the parent mass. That is, indeed, in its most general 
form, the idea of the nebular theory. 

According to Laplace, the earliest condition of the 
solar system of which science gives us any account is 
that of a heated gas diffused through an immense space 
extending even beyond the orbit of Neptune. If the 
particles of such a gas were subject to the mutual at- 
traction of gravitation, the resultant of all the attrac- 
tions would be a movement of each particle towards the 
common center of gravity — a condensation of the mass. 
If the further supposition is made of independent 
movements of the particles in various directions in the 
initial stage of the history (whatever may have been 
the cause or causes of those movements), the resultant 
of those independent movements, in connection with 
the gravitational tendency towards the center, would 

144 



The Theory as Developed by Laplace 

be a revolution of each particle around the center. Un- 
less the movements of revolution in opposite directions 
exactly balanced each other — a supposition whose im- 
probability would be well-nigh infinite, — the aggre- 
gate effect of the tendency of each particle to revolve 
around the center would be the rotation of the entire 
mass. 

As condensation progressed, the rotation would 
increase in velocity, since every particle must conform 
to the lav/ that the radius vector describes equal areas 
in equal times. With increasing velocity of rotation 
there would come an increased centrifugal force. Af- 
ter a time, at the periphery of the rotating mass, where 
necessarily the force of gravitation would be weakest, 
the centrifugal force would overbalance the force of 
gravitation. Peripheral portions of the mass would 
then be left behind, as the central mass, still condens- 
ing, shrank away from them. The origin of the planets 
is to be found in these peripheral portions of the nebula 
left behind from time to time by reason of increasing 
centrifugal force. It is obvious that there would be 
three possibilities in regard to the subsequent develop- 
ment of those peripheral portions of the nebula which 
were thus left behind. If the mass was almost per- 
fectl}" symmetrical and homogeneous, it might happen 
that the particles left behind at the periphery would 
be so uniformly distributed all around the central mass 
that the ring of particles thus formed would be able to 
maintain itself as a permanent ring. It is obvious, 
however, that so perfect symmetry in the arrangement 

145 



The Nebular Theory 

of the particles left behind by the contracting spheroid 
would be likely to occur only as a rare and exceptional 
phenomenon. It would seem probable that, in the great 
majority of cases, the peripheral ring would quickly 
break up into fragments, which would become aggre- 
gated into a single spheroidal mass, or perhaps, under 
different conditions, into a number of spheroidal 
masses. The spheroids thus formed would be the plan- 
ets. The revolution of the planets around the sun is 
thus seen to be necessitated by the motion of rotation 
which they had formerly shared with the central mass. 
It can be shown that a planet thus formed would ro- 
tate on its axis as well as revolve around the sun, and 
that under some conditions the rotation would be in 
the same direction as the revolution, and under other 
not improbable conditions the rotation would be in the 
direction opposite to the revolution. The exceptional 
movements of Neptune and Uranus are thus readily 
accounted for. As a planet rotated and contracted, it 
would in turn leave behind peripheral portions, which 
would form satellites, precisely as the primary planets 
were formed by the leaving behind of peripheral por- 
tions of the sun. In the vast majority of cases, both 
of primary planets and of satellites, the whole amount 
of the material left behind at each epoch of planetary 
formation aggregated itself into a single spheroid. In 
the evolution of the primary planets we have the one 
exceptional case of the asteroids, in which the material 
left behind aggregated itself not into a single spheroid, 
but into a large number of spheroids, forming many 

146 



Modifications of the Theory 

small planets instead of one large one. In the evolu- 
tion of the satellites from the planets, we have the one 
wonderful case of Saturn's rings, in which the mate- 
rial abandoned at the periphery of the rotating mass 
was so exquisitely balanced as to maintain itself per- 
manently in the condition of a ring. It is of course 
involved in the form of the nebular theory held by 
Laplace that the planets were formed in the order of 
their distance from the sun, commencing with the most 
distant. Neptune was the first-born of the children 
of the sun, and Mercury the youngest of its children. 
In the preceding paragraph, the nebular theor}^ has 
been stated substantially in the form in which it was 
proposed by Laplace. There is reason, however, to 
believe that some modifications will render the theory 
more accordant with the facts and probabilities of as- 
tronomical science to-day. In the first place, Laplace's 
supposition that the material left behind from time to 
time at the periphery of the contracting nebula would 
always or generally be a complete ring, assumed too 
great a degree of symmetry and homogeneity in the 
nebula. It seems more probable that, at least in the 
majority of cases, there would be a decided excess of 
matter on one side of the axis of rotation, forming a 
more or less decided protuberance or hump, and that 
the material left behind when the centrifuofal force 
overbalanced the force of gravitation would be derived, 
not from the whole periphery of the nebula, but 'from 
that protuberance. In such cases, of course, the aggre- 
gation of the mass thus separated into a single spheroid 

147 



The Nebular Theory 

would be more quickly accomplished than in the proc- 
ess assumed by Laplace. 

In the second place, Laplace's supposition that the 
initial temperature of the nebula was extremely high, is 
certainly unnecessary, and probably not true. What- 
ever the initial temperature may have been, the effect 
of condensation would be the production of heat. So 
long as the condensation was rapid, the gain of heat, 
as the result of condensation, would exceed the loss of 
heat by radiation into space. The temperature, there- 
fore, would rise, in the mass as a whole, or in any iso- 
lated portion of that mass, so long as it was undergoing 
rapid condensation. When, in any particular portion, 
the condensation had reached such a stage that further 
condensation became very slow, the loss of heat by 
radiation would overbalance the slow gain by further 
condensation, and the temperature would fall. The 
thermal conditions of different parts of the solar sys- 
tem are so exactly in accord with this phase of the the- 
ory as to furnish a strong confirmation of the truth of 
the theory. The earth and probably all the planets 
have reached such a stage of condensation that their 
rate of contraction at present is very slow. They are, 
therefore, probably cooling globes ; and, so far as we 
can get evidence as to their respective temperatures, 
the largest bodies have the highest temperatures. The 
extremely dense atmosphere of Jupiter, the largest of 
the planets, with its vast ocean of cloud, apparently 
hiding completely the surface of the planet, bears wit- 
ness to the very high temperature of that planet. Jupi- 

148 



Thermal Condition of Planetary System 

ter, in fact, appears to be in the condition in which the 
earth was once, when all the ocean existed in the at- 
mosphere, chiefly in the form of vapor, but in part 
condensing into cloud. While in Jupiter, the largest 
of the planets, we thus find indication of a temperature 
much higher than that of the earth, telescopic observa- 
tions of the moon indicate that it has cooled to a much 
lower temperature than that of the earth. In that proc- 
ess of cooling it has almost or entirely lost its original 
supply of atmospheric gases and of water. The atmos- 
phere and water which it probably once possessed, may 
have been withdrawn into the pores of its solid mass, 
or have entered into stable forms of chemical combina- 
tion. Some of the water perhaps exists at the surface in 
the form of ice. While it is probably true of all the 
planets that they have long since passed their maximum 
of temperature and are now cooling, it is uncertain 
whether the temperature of the sun at present is rising 
or falling. The density of the sun is small, and there 
is reason to believe that a large part of its material is 
gaseous. It is, however, a gas in a state of extreme 
condensation, and is at present contracting very slowly. 
Our knowledge is insufficient positively to decide 
whether its gain of heat by the slow contraction going 
on is greater or less than its loss of heat by radiation. 
There is a tendency also to the opinion that, in its 
initial condition, the nebula was not a uniform gas, but 
rather a swarm of meteors. The motions of these 
bodies in space would result in frequent collisions, and 
the effect of the collision of meteors would be to 

149 



The Nebular Theory 

produce so great an amount of heat as to convert a 
greater or less part of their substance into gas. The 
effect of the condensation of the nebula in producing 
a gradual elevation of temperature would be the same, 
whether we suppose the material to have been a gas or 
a meteoric swarm. In the former case, with increasing 
condensation the collisions of molecules would be more 
frequent; in the latter case, with increasing conden- 
sation the collision of the meteors would be more fre- 
quent. Whether the collisions were of molecules or of 
masses of sensible magnitude, makes no difference in 
the general result. In either case, the greater fre- 
quency of collisions would produce a continuous eleva- 
tion of temperature. 

It is uncertain, too, whether the planets were evolved 
in the order of their relative distances from the sun, 
as supposed by Laplace. It is believed by many as- 
tronomers to be possible that condensation may have 
taken place at. various points within the mass of the 
nebula, so that planetary evolution may have been go- 
ing on simultaneously at various distances from the 
center. There is, moreover, considerable reason to 
believe that the genesis of the moon was an exceptional 
case, differing considerably in its method from that of 
other secondary planets and that of the primary 
planets.* 

The evidence upon which Laplace relied for the sup- 
port of the nebular theory was found, as we have seen, 

* G. H. Darwin, The Tides^ and Ki?idred Phenomena in the Solar System^ 
pp. 282, 339. 



Nebula 

in the coincidences of the planetary movements. In 
1811, Sir WilHam Herschel called attention to the evi- 
dence furnished in support of some form of nebular 
theory by the presence of nebulae and nebulous stars. 
Many nebulae are readily seen with low powers of the 
telescope, appearing as faint cloudlets of diffused light. 
In some cases a bright point of light is seen somewhere 
near the center of the nebula, and then the body is 
called a nebulous star. It was urged by Herschel that 
these phenomena indicate that in various parts of the 
universe at the present time there are masses of matter 
in some such condition as that in which the solar sys- 
tem is believed to have been at a remote period in the 
past. The views of Sir William Herschel seem not to 
have attracted very much attention at the time they 
were first published, and some decades later they ap- 
peared to be considerably discredited by new discov- 
eries. In 1842, Lord Rosse constructed a colossal re- 
flecting telescope of higher magnifying power than any 
telescope which had been previously used. The exami- 
nation of many nebulae with that great instrument 
showed that they were simply clusters of stars, whose 
immense distance or relatively small size rendered it 
impossible to recognize the individual stars with lower 
magnifying powers. It was a very natural conclusion, 
but a hasty one, and one which we now know to be 
erroneous, that it only needed a larger telescope to re- 
solve all the nebulae into stars. We now feel sure that 
no telescopic power could resolve all nebulae into stars, 
for the simple reason that some of them are not stars. 

151 



The Nebular Theory 

The spectroscope serves to distinguish the Hght of in- 
candescent gases not extremely condensed, from the 
Hght of incandescent solids or liquids, or from that of 
gases in an extreme state of condensation. The ordi- 
nary spectrum of gases is discontinuous, consisting of 
isolated bright lines, whose position is characteristic 
of particular substances ; while incandescent solids or 
liquids, or gases in a state of extreme condensation, 
afford a continuous spectrum (which may, however, 
be interrupted by dark lines if the light passes through 
an absorptive medium). The sun and the stars show 
by their continuous spectra that their light proceeds 
from incandescent solids or liquids or from gases ex- 
tremely condensed. In the case of the sun, it is be- 
lieved that its light comes from a stratum of luminous 
cloud in its atmosphere. The spectrum of some of the 
nebulae shows the bright lines which are characteristic 
of a diffused gas. The spectroscope has therefore rein- 
stated in more than its original force the argument of 
Herschel. We may with confidence regard the nebulae 
which show the characteristic gaseous spectrum as 
bodies of matter in some such condition as that as- 
sumed by the nebular theory to have been the initial 
condition of the solar system.* 

* The nebular theory has been recently subjected to a searcliing: criticism by 
T. C. Chamberlin, in The Journal of Geology, vol. v, p. 653, vol. viii, \>. 58, 
and vol. ix, p. 369; and by F, R, Moulton, in The Astrophysical Journal, 
vol. xi, p. 103. It seems not improbable that arguments apparently so cogent 
as are presented in these able articles will lead to a somewhat radical modifica- 
tion of the prevailing views in regard to the genesis of the planetary system. 
While these writers believe the theory of Laplace to be untenable, they still 
hold to the probable origin of the planetary system from a nebula. There is 
little doubt that a nebular theory will prove true even if the nebular theory of 
Laplace is abandoned. 



Evolution in Geology 



EVOLUTION IN GEOLOGY* 



We must next consider the development of the idea 
of evokition in geology. We have seen that the geol- 
ogists at the beginning of the nineteenth century were 
all catastrophists.f Hutton, who did more than any 
other man of his time to establish geological theorizing 
upon a sound foundation, understood well how conti- 
nents are progressively degraded by the action of the 
atmosphere and water; but he knew of no intelligible 
process for the elevation of continents, and was there- 
fore obliged to postulate the occasional occurrence of 
inexplicable catastrophes, in which continents were 
suddenly and violently elevated, to undergo gradual 
degradation thereafter by atmospheric and aqueous 
agencies. In like manner, the paleontologists of the 
early part of the nineteenth century all believed that the 
history of life upon the globe had been a history of 
successive creations. Again and again some violent 
cataclysm had exterminated all the life of the globe; 
and again and again creative power had originated, by 
means which science could not hope to formulate or 
explain, a new fauna and flora. 

To Sir Charles Lyell, more than to any other one 
man, belongs the credit of delivering geological science 
from the vagaries of catastrophism. The first edition of 
Lyell's classical and epoch-making work, ''The Prin- 
ciples of Geology," was published in 1830. A new 
edition of that book was issued every few years, almost 

* See references in note on page 41. t Page 51. 



Evolution in Geology 

until the time of the author's death in 1875, so that 
for a period of more than forty years the successive 
editions of that book afford a history of the progress 
of geological science. In the seventh edition of ''The 
Principles of Geology," published in 1847, ^"<^ '^^ ^^1 
later editions, one chapter bears the title, ''Uniformity 
in the Series of Past Changes in the Animate and In- 
animate World." In that chapter was presented in 
definite form the argument, of which, indeed, the whole 
book was an expansion, against the necessity of the 
supposed catastrophes of the older geological school. 
In the repudiation of catastrophism, Lyell rendered the 
Huttonian doctrine consistent. The merit of Hutton 
was in his fundamental principle that the past changes 
of the globe are to be interpreted in the light of the 
changes now going on. His belief in catastrophism 
was therefore obviously incongruous with the general 
spirit and tenor of his theorizing. In Lyell, then, for 
the first time, we find a consistent development of the 
Huttonian doctrine. Lyell called attention to the fact 
that the earth's crust is in continual oscillation at the 
present time. Some coasts, like that of Scandinavia, 
are slowly rising; others, like that of Greenland, are 
sinking. We only need to suppose that similar changes 
have been going on through indefinite ages of the past 
in order to account for any amount of change in level 
which may be required. There is no need, then, of as- 
suming the occurrence of inexplicable catastrophes in 
order to account for the elevation of continents. A 
continuous gradual elevation of a part of the crust of 

154 



Lyell 

the globe would produce a continent if only continued 
for a sufficient time. Lyell, again, gave for the first 
time the true interpretation of the abrupt changes in 
flora and fauna between successive geological forma- 
tions. As was pointed out when we were discussing 
the catastrophism of the early geologists,* the most 
abrupt changes in flora and fauna usually occur where 
the underlying and the overlying series of strata are 
manifestly unconformable with each other. Lyell 
showed that the inference to be drawn in such cases 
was, not that there had been a universal extermination 
of life, followed by the creation of a new fauna and 
flora, but rather that there was an unrecorded interval 
of time, in which species may have migrated from one 
district to another, old species one by one may have 
become extinct, and new species one by one may 
have been introduced. The lack of geological record 
of such an interval of time would make the result of a 
change which had really been gradual appear sudden 
and catastrophic. 

But, while geology owes so much to Lyell and to the 
imiformitarian school of which he was the founder, 
the doctrines of that school are by no means held in 
their completeness by geologists of the present time. 
The great merit of Lyell was the unshrinking consist- 
ency with which he insisted that no forces or agencies 
must be postulated in geological theorizing which can- 
not be show^n to be in action at the present time. The 
past must be interpreted purely in the light of the pres- 

* Page 52. 

155 



Evolution in Geology 

ent. But much of Lyell's thinking was vitiated by a 
latent assumption that uniformity of law from age to 
age involves uniformity in phenomena. Of course 
Lyell would never have acknowledged that he held a 
doctrine so absurd. When distinctly formulated, the 
assertion that uniformity of law^ means uniformity in 
phenomena from age to age, is almost self-contradic- 
tory. It is, in reality, as a consequence of the uniform- 
ity of law and the constancy in the action of physical 
forces, that the earth has come to its present condition 
from a past condition different from the present, and 
tends to a future condition different from either the 
present or the past. If, for instance, the earth is to- 
day a relatively hot body surrounded by cold space, the 
assumption that physical forces are constant and that 
their laws are uniform compels us to believe that the 
earth was once hotter than it is, and that it is destined 
to be colder than it is. But the thinking even of great 
men is often perverted by some false conception, whose 
falsity might be perceived if it were distinctly formu- 
lated, but which in latent and unrecognized condition 
serves to influence their conclusions. Lyell's dogma 
of uniformitarianism made him unwiUing to admit 
within the scope of geological science a conception of a 
condition of the earth very different from the present. 
He insisted, as Hutton had insisted in the previous 
century, that geology has nothing to do with cosmog- 
ony. To Lyell, as to Hutton, geological phenomena 
gave no indication either of beginning or ending of the 
earth. Even in the latest edition of his "Principles of 

156 



Errors of Uniformitarianism 

Geology," tl^e title '^Nebular Theory" does not appear 
in the index. In Lyell's earlier editions, he called at- 
tention to the fact that recent paleontological discov- 
eries are continually carrying back the existence of 
some particular group of animals or plants to an earlier 
geological period than that in which they had been pre- 
viously known to occur, and accordingly insinuated a 
doubt whether there has been any real progress in the 
development of life since Cambrian time. Since most 
geological processes are obviously very slow, Lyell as- 
sumed that all geological processes must be slow, and 
accordingly conceived of geological time as almost an 
eternity. In the continuous oscillation of the earth's 
crust, Lyell assumed that elevations and subsidences 
of various areas followed each other w^ith kaleidoscopic 
indefiniteness, so that continent and ocean may have 
repeatedly exchanged places in the course of geolog- 
ical time. This phase of the Lyellian doctrine finds 
beautiful expression in the lines of Tennyson, — 

"There rolls the deep where grew the tree. 

O earth ! what changes hast thou seen ! 

There, where the long street roars, hath been 
The stillness of the central sea." 

Huxley has shown that the evolutionary school of 
geology, which is dominant to-day, is the heir both of 
catastrophism and of uniformitarianism.* The one 
of those extreme views is about as dead as the other. 
From the uniformitarianism of Lyell, modern geology 
inherits a consistent and unflinching faith in the doc- 

* Geological Re/orm, in Discourses Geological and Biological, p. 305. 



Evolution in Geology ' "' 

trine that laws and forces which are illustrated in the 
changes now in progress, and those alone, must be ap- 
pealed to for the explanation of the changes which 
went on in the past. But modern geology fully ac- 
cepts the truth that uniformity of law not only does not 
contradict, but does absolutely require, the recognition 
of vast changes in phenomena. Modern geology does 
not hesitate to recognize the earth as a cooling globe, 
and to find in its contraction, with progressive cooling, 
the explanation of crustal movements and of the origin 
of the earth's physical features. Modern geology does 
not hesitate to say that the earth as a habitable globe 
must run its course in a distinctly finite period of 
time — a period, indeed, measured by tens or at most 
by hundreds of millions of years. The evidences of 
beginning and ending of the present phase of the his- 
tory of the earth are unmistakable. Modern geology 
does not hesitate to link itself with astronomy through 
the nebular theory, and to find in the conception of 
Laplace, or some modification of that conception, the 
explanation of the origin of the earth. Modern geol- 
ogy recognizes that, although the majority of geolog- 
ical changes are slow, some geological changes are 
rapid. Intermittent effects may follow the action of 
a continuous force. The rigidity of rock masses may 
resist for a long time an accumulating pressure, and 
the yielding may take place at last with comparative 
rapidity. Hence it is probable that the physical his- 
tory of the globe has been an alternation of periods of 
comparative crustal stability, with periods of compara- 

158 



Evolution in Biology 

tively rapid crustal movement in which great mountain 
ranges have been elevated. Some geological move- 
ments, indeed, may have been relatively so rapid as, in 
a qualified sense, to deserve the name of catastrophes. 
Modern geology holds, as Dana taught more than half 
a century ago, that the fundamental differentiation of 
the earth's surface — the distinction of continent and 
ocean — dates from a very early stage in the process of 
the earth's refrigeration. Although the continents have 
been in the past largely covered by shallow seas, it 
does not appear that they have ever formed the bed 
of deep oceans, or that there has been anything like a 
general exchange of position between continent and 
ocean. And surely no geologist of the present day 
would have a shadow of doubt that life commenced 
in pre-Cambrian time with comparatively low and 
simple forms, and that the progress through the 
ages has been marked by the successive appearance 
of higher and higher types, and by an expansion 
of animal and vegetable life to a continually increas- 
ing richness of diversification. 

EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY 

The Origin of Species'^ 

We come now to the discussion of the most impor- 
tant subject of scientific investigation in the half-cen- 
tury just closed — evolution in biology, or, more par- 
ticularly, the question of the evolutionary origin of the 

* A.n admirable historical sketch of evolutionary thought prior to Darwin 
may be found in Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin. Darwin, Origin of 



Evolution in Biology 

species of plants and animals. The beginning of the 
modern phase of the question of evolution in biology 
v^as in the year 1858. But, before referring to the 
papers whose promulgation in that year inaugurated 
the new era in biological science, it is well for us to 
notice the preparation which had been made previously 
to that time for the development of a theory of evolu- 
tion in biology. Before the year 1858, evolutionary 
theories in astronomy and geology had come to be gen- 
erally accepted. It was the almost unanimous belief 
of astronomers that some form of the nebular theory 
must be accepted as the explanation of the origin of 
the planets. The catastrophism of the early geologists 
had received its death-blow from the arguments of 
Lyell. It had come to be recognized by every one that 
the whole history of the inorganic arrangements of 
the earth, from the initial condition of the nebula to 
the present time — the origination of the globe itself, 
and the development of oceans, continents, mountains, 
and all other physical features,— was the result of a 
perfectly continuous evolutionary process. The fact 
that evolution had ruled with consistent sway in all the 

species, is still the classical work on the gfeneral subject of evolution of species 
and on the theory of natural selection. It is supplemented, not superseded, 
by later \vriting:s. A few of the other most important works on evolution in 
f^enpral and on natural selection are: Wallace. Coiiti-ihtitions to the Theo7-yof 
Natural Selection ; Wallace, Darwitiism ; Huxley, Dar^viniana {Collected 
Essays, vol. ii) ; Gray, Dariviniana ; Romanes, Dar'ivin and After Darwin, 
vol. i, The Darivinia7i Theory; Conn, Evohition of To-day; Le Conte, Evo- 
lution and its Relation to Religions Tho?/glit ; Drummond, Ascent of Man ; 
Marshall, Lectures on the Darivinian Theory. Other works bearino; on special 
phases of the <<octrine of evolution will be cited later. The views expressed in 
the present work are for the most part the same as were briefly outlined in the 
article on Evolution in Sanford's Concise Cyclopedia of Religious Knowledge 
(republished with some modification in my Twenty-Eive Years of Scientific 
Progress., and Other Essays). 

160 



Preparation for Darwin 

inorganic arrangements of the earth, could not fail to 
suggest doubts of the prevalent belief that the history 
of organic nature was a history of a discontinuous suc- 
cession of special creations. 

We must notice, too, that in a special sense the views 
which Lyell had rendered popular in historical geology 
prepared the way for organic evolution. Cataclysmic 
periods of universal extermination of life, which fig- 
ured in the theories of the older geologists, had been 
universally abandoned. Everywhere it had come to be 
recognized that species appeared and disappeared, one 
at a time or a few at a time, not by the simultaneous 
destruction and creation of entire floras and faunas. 
Before the year 1858, even the most conservative geol- 
ogists were read}^ to concede that there is no satisfac- 
tory evidence of an epoch of universal destruction of 
life and simultaneous creation of a new fauna and 
flora at any stage of the earth's history. The universal 
acceptance of a belief that the progress of life, from 
the Cambrian era to the present, had thus been a grad- 
ual progress, and not a progress marked by a series of 
catastrophic exterminations and new creations, natu- 
rally suggested the idea that the progress of life was 
a strictly continuous process — an evolution. 

In the middle of the nineteenth centur}^ then, the 
world was ready for a more favorable consideration of 
thx hypothesis of biological evolution than that hy- 
pothesis had ever received before. Of course the ques- 
tion had been raised again and again in the past.. 
Ever3^one who knows anything of animal and vege- 

161 



The Origin of Species 

table life knows that the life of every individual is 
most typically an example of continuous evolution. 
Every individual has its origin in a condition of unicel- 
lular simplicity, and gradually attains to the complex- 
ity of structure and variety of function which charac- 
terizes the adult. The question must always have been 
ready to suggest itself to the philosophic mind, whether 
the origin of the earliest individuals of a species was 
not, like the origin of all their successors, due to a 
process of evolution. In vague and crude forms the 
idea of evolution of one type of life from another and 
lower type was taught by many of the Greek philoso- 
phers ; and in the beginning of the nineteenth century 
(1801) the French naturalist, Lamarck, presented the 
idea of evolution of new species in a form which may 
fairly be considered a scientific theory. 

Lamarck's views, however, made little impression 
upon the thought of his time. The reason was three- 
fold. First, he was unable to give any satisfactory ex- 
planation of the method of evolution. He recognized 
some of those relations between different species of 
animals and plants which we have now learned to in- 
terpret as evidences of the origin of species by descent 
with modification. But his explanation of the method 
of evolution was certainly inadequate ; and, as we shall 
see hereafter,* it is not certain that it has any degree of 
validity. Secondly, the time was not ripe for a theory 
of evolution. The general state of the world's thought 
in 1 80 1 was very different from what it was in 1858. 

* Page 214. 
162 



Lamarck 

In the interval between those two dates, the acceptance 
of evolution in astronomy and geology had prepared 
the way for the acceptance of an analogous belief in 
biology. The complete abandonment of the notion of 
universal exterminations followed by new creations 
had removed one of the most serious difficulties in the 
way of biological evolution. Thirdly, Lamarck was 
unfortunate in that he found an opponent greatly his 
superior in knowledge and ability. Georges Cuvier, the 
great anatomist and paleontologist, appeared as the 
champion of the special creation of every species, and 
won an easy victory over the crude and premature 
hypothesis of Lamarck. Though on the question of 
evolution we now count Lamarck right and Cuvier 
wrong, Cuvier is nevertheless recognized as worthy of 
far higher honor than Lamarck for his aggregate of 
service to scientific truth. The instances are not few 
in the history of science in which, as in this case, the 
influence of a name deservedly honored has served to 
maintain for a time an erroneous belief. We have 
already had occasion to note the influence of Newton 
in delaying the acceptance of the views of Huyghens 
in regard to the nature of light.* 

The beginning of the modern phase of the history of 
biological evolution was in 1858, when Alfred Russell 
Wallace, who had been spending four years in the 
Malay Archipelago in the study of the zoology, botany, 
and geology of that region, sent to his friend, Charles 
Darwin, an essay "On the Tendency of Varieties to 

* Page 129. 
163 



The Origin of Species 

depart indefinitely from the Original Type."* It was 
with strangely mingled feelings that Darwin read 
his friend's essay. He had been at work himself for 
twenty years on a theory of evolution. Fourteen years 
before, he had written a preliminary statement of his 
views, and shown it to one of his scientific friends. f 
He had waited those many years to gather additional 
facts, to answer the objections that had arisen in the 
progress of his thinking, to work out many points more 
in detail, and in general to prepare himself eventually 
to publish his views in more complete form and with 
more conclusive evidence. It was, indeed, startling to 
find the central idea of his own work formulated in 
Wallace's paper. With a generosity of which few men 
would have been capable, he was disposed at first to 
publish his friend's essay, and still withhold his own 
v^ork from publication. But two of his friends, Lyell, 
the geologist, and Hooker, the botanist, felt that such 
self-abnegation would be unreasonable; and it was 
finally arranged that at the same meeting of the Lin- 
nean Society should be read Wallace's essay, and a 
paper by Darwin consisting of extracts from the sketch 
written in 1844 and a part of a letter to Asa Gray writ- 
en in 1857. The two papers presented at the Linnean 
Society that memorable evening are the Wittenberg 
Theses of the intellectual reformation of our time. In 
the following year was published Darwin's epoch- 
making book on ''The Origin of Species by means of 

* Included in Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection. 
t Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker. 

164 



Wallace and Darwin 

Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored 
Races in the Struggle for Life." With the publication 
of that book, the discussion emerged from the associa- 
tions of technical students of science into the larger 
arena of the world's thought. 

It is impossible to praise too highly the conduct of 
these two illustrious men in their relation to each other. 
It afforded a beautiful contrast to the petty squabbles 
about priority which have so often disgraced the lives 
even of eminent scientific men. It was a fine example 
of the fulfillment of St. Paul's precept, ''in honor pre- 
ferring one another." Wallace's treatment of Darwin 
was a worthy reciprocation of Darwin's own gener- 
osity. At the meeting of the British Association in 
1867, he publicly declared that he was proud to be a 
Darwinian; and, in the preface to his "Contributions 
to the Theory of Natural Selection," he said, "I have 
felt the most sincere satisfaction that Mr. Darwin had 
been at work long before me, and that it was not left 
for me to attempt to write 'The Origin of Species.' " 

Before considering the theory of natural selection, 
we must notice two comprehensive laws in the realm of 
life with which the theory stands in intimate relation. 
Those two laws are heredity and variation. We may 
state those principles in a simple, though somewhat 
paradoxical, form in two propositions: — (i) The off- 
spring is always like its parent. (2) The offspring is 
never like its parent. 

The offspring is always like its parent. It inherits 
from its parents those qualities which mark it as an in- 

165 



The Origin of Species 

dividual of a particular species. The offspring of a 
cat is never anything but a kitten. The plant that 
grows from an acorn is never anything but an oak. 
But, as every one knows, the offspring inherits from its 
parents far more than those characteristics which mark 
it as an individual of a particular species. We know 
well, in the case of ourselves, that we have inherited 
from our parents far more than those characters which 
belong to us all as human beings. We have inherited 
from our parents peculiarities of size, form, com- 
plexion, color of hair, susceptibility, it may be, to 
particular diseases, peculiar mental and moral traits. 
Analogous facts we observe continually among our ac- 
quaintances. The same thing is noticed by all who at- 
tentively study domestic animals of any species. If the 
facts are less familiar to us in regard to wild animals 
and in regard to plants in general, it is chiefly because 
we do not give so much attention to individual peculi- 
arities in the case of wild animals and plants as in the 
case of human beings and domestic animals, though it is 
doubtless true that in general the amount of variability 
is greater in domestic animals than in wild species. 

It is equally certain that the offspring is never ex- 
actly like the parent. No human being shows an exact 
repetition of the characteristics of father or mother. 
No two children in the same family, no two kittens in 
the same litter, are exactly alike. No two seeds in the 
same pod are exactly alike, nor will they develop into 
plants exactly alike. Every individual exhibits more 
or less of individual peculiarity. 

1 66 



Heredity and Variation 

We may say, then, that the orbit of every species of 
animal or plant is determined by the centripetal and 
centrifugal forces of heredity and variation. Whether 
we can or cannot give an explanation of these laws, we 
must recognize their existence throughout the realm of 
life, and a theory of evolution must be based upon 
them. 

If one species is transmuted into another species, it 
must obviously be by one of two processes or by some 
combination of the two. Either there must be from 
time to time very great variations, so that in these ex- 
ceptional cases the offspring is so. different from the 
parents as to be marked at once as the beginning of a 
new and distinct race; or, secondly, there must be 
from generation to generation a progressive accumula- 
tion of small variations tending in one direction; or, 
thirdly, there must be the occurrence of both these con- 
ditions. But here we meet with what has always been 
felt as the great difficulty in the way of the evolution of 
species. Within the limited time in which accurate ob- 
servations of living beings have been made, the general 
result of our observation is that variation is small in 
amount, and, instead of being cumulative from gen- 
eration to generation, it simply oscillates around an 
average type. A simple illustration will make clear 
the state of the case. In the human species variations 
in stature are continually occurring. Yet, with the 
exception of cases more or less decidedly pathological, 
those variations in stature are confined within narrow 
limits ; and there seems no tendency for the variation to 

167 



The Origin of Species 

be cumulative in successive generations. We do not 
observe that the children of small men are smaller than 
their parents, and their grandchildren smaller still, so 
as to show a tendency to the development of a pygmy 
race; nor do we find a tendency to cumulative varia- 
tion in the other direction, so as to develop a race of 
giants. The same thing might be illustrated by any 
other variable characteristic in the human species, or 
in any other species with which we are well acquainted. 
A certain average character of the species maintains 
itself substantially invariable from generation to gen- 
eration. Some individuals are larger and some are 
smaller; some individuals lighter colored and others 
darker. But the variations in these and in other char- 
acters simply oscillate around the average type. It is 
obvious that, so long as this state of things continues, 
there can be no such thing as the evolution of a new 
species. 

But it would be a tremendous logical saltus, from the 
fact that, within the narrow limits of our observation, 
variation appears to be small in amount and merely 
oscillatory, to leap to the conclusion that the same has 
been true throughout the world and throughout the 
lapse of geological time. Accurate observation upon 
the characters of any organic species has been extended 
over only a few centuries at the utmost, and the period 
covered by that observation is a period in which the 
physical environment has been comparatively stable. 
No great geographic or climatic changes have been in 
progress upon the surface of the globe during the time 

i68 



Natural Selection 

in which zoologists and botanists have been at work. 
It must be recognized as possible, and not very im- 
probable a priori, that, in the changing environment to 
which animals and plants have been exposed in the 
lapse of geological time, with its immense vicissitudes 
of climate and geography, there may have been times 
when variation has been cumulative in particular direc- 
tions, instead of being merely oscillatory. The theory 
of evolution, however, would not have a very satis- 
factory foundation if it rested only on such an a priori 
possibility. To give satisfactory ground for a behef 
in evolution, it must be shown that there is some 
agency at work in nature which would tend, under cer- 
tain conditions, to make variation progressive. It is 
precisely that need of the doctrine of evolution which 
is supplied by the theory of natural selection, as pro- 
posed by Darwin and Wallace. 

The theory of natural selection is founded upon 
three unquestionable truths in regard to the realm of 
life. Two of them have been already mentioned as 
underlying any speculation in regard to evolution. 
These are the laws of heredity and variation. The 
third general law of organic nature on which the the- 
ory of natural selection rests, is the tendency of every 
species of animal or plant to multiply in geometrical 
ratio. Just at the close of the eighteenth century, the 
essay of Malthus on the ''Principle of Population" 
called the attention of economists and sociologists to 
the tendency to geometrical increase in the human spe- 
cies. The same law operates in the case of every 

169 



The Origin of Species 

species of animal or plant, without any of the pruden- 
tial restraints which modify its action in the case of 
man. Even in the case of creatures which breed most 
slowly the law holds good. The elephant, for example, 
produces young only about once in ten years, and gen- 
erally only one at a birth. Yet, if there were no check 
upon the multiplication of that species, there would 
be in a few generations more elephants than could find 
standing-room upon the earth, to say nothing of the 
impossibility of their finding means of subsistence. 
Darwin estimates that the progeny of a single pair of 
elephants, after the lapse of seven hundred and fifty 
years, would number about nineteen million. And, 
when we come to consider some of the lower forms of 
animal and vegetable life, which produce eggs or 
spores by the million, the significance of the law of 
geometrical increase becomes startlingly impressive. 

The actual fulfillment of this tendency to geometrical 
increase is prevented by the fact that every individual 
is exposed to a continual succession of perils from the 
earliest moment of its existence until it finally suc- 
cumbs in death. By far the greater number of the 
germs of life which are produced never get beyond the 
germinal stage. The vast majority of eggs are de- 
voured or otherwise destroyed before they are hatched, 
and the vast majority of seeds before they germinate. 
But, if the egg is hatched or the seed germinates, and 
the independent life of the new animal or plant be- 
gins, the individual is exposed to a continuous series 
of perils along the whole course of its existence. These 

170 



The Struggle for Life 

dangers to the life of each individual come in part 
from inorganic conditions, such as the inclemency of 
weather, the extremes of heat and cold, of drouth and 
damp. They come in part from the presence of rivals 
destined to live upon the same kind of food ; and mul- 
titudes are starved in the relentless competition. Mul- 
titudes, again, of plants and animals are devoured by 
animals for which they constitute the appropriate food. 
If an individual survives to maturity, it does so in vir- 
tue of having successfully run the gauntlet of these 
perils, and having overcome in what Darwin has 
vividly and almost poetically called, "the struggle for 
life." 

But now, since variation is universal, and no two 
individuals of any species are exactly alike, it is ob- 
vious that some individuals in every generation will 
be better adapted than others to conquer in the struggle 
for life. They may be protected against external cold 
by a warmer coat of fur or feathers; they may be 
able by greater strength or greater cunning to secure 
food, where their weaker or less cunning brethren 
starve; they may be able, in time of scarcity of the 
best quality of food, to digest an inferior quality of 
food and thrive upon it, while other individuals of 
the species may not be able to use the inferior food 
without great impairment of vitality; they may es- 
cape from carnivorous animals by greater swiftness, 
or be able to repel their attacks by greater strength 
and courage. If in any way whatever some of the 
individuals of a species are better adapted for success 

171 



The Origin of Species 

in the struggle for life, those individuals will be likely 
to survive to maturity, and may therefore have the 
opportunity to propagate their species. They w\\\ be 
naturally selected to breed the coming generation. By 
the law of heredity it will naturally follow that their 
offspring will inherit, in greater or less degree, those 
favorable peculiarities which have given the parents 
victory in the struggle for life. This, then, is the prin- 
ciple of natural selection. 

The phrase, "natural selection," is, of course, a meta- 
phorical one. It was suggested to Darwin by the ex- 
perience of cultivators of plants and breeders of ani- 
mals. No breeder of intelligence and skill will allow 
all his animals indiscriminately to propagate. If he 
only desires, in general, to maintain a healthy and 
vigorous stock, he will select for breeding purposes 
those of his animals which appear to be in the best 
general condition. If, on the other hand, he desires 
to develop any particular quality, he will select for 
breeding the individuals which already possess that 
quality in highest degree. If, for instance, the cattle- 
breeder desires to raise a race of cattle characterized 
by a tendency to take on flesh and develop great 
weight — a quality which would be profitable for the 
production of beef — he will accomplish that result by 
continually selecting his heaviest bulls and cows for 
breeding. If he wishes to improve his herd with refer- 
ence to dairy products, he will select for breeding those 
cows which yield milk In largest quantity, or milk of 
richest quality, according as he proposes to sell milk 

172 



Artificial and Natural Selection 

or butter. If he desires, as a matter of fancy, a breed 
possessed of any peculiarity of appearance, as extreme 
length of horns or extreme shortness of horns, he will 
select his animals for breeding in reference to the par- 
ticular qualities which he wishes to develop. The same 
sort pf selection is practiced by agriculturists and horti- 
culturists in the endeavor to produce choice varieties 
of the plants cultivated for their beauty or for their 
economic uses. In every case the principle upon which 
successful breeding depends is the careful selection of 
the most promising individuals from which to breed. 
This artificial selection, then, as practiced by cultiva- 
tors and breeders, suggested the metaphorical phrase, 
"natural selection." There is, of course, an obvious 
difference between the artificial selection practiced by 
the breeder, and natural selection. Artificial selection 
is based upon equalities which are useful, not to the 
animal or plant itself, but to its owner. Those quali- 
ties may be even detrimental to the vitality of the ani- 
mal or plant. Natural selection is obviously related 
to the qualities which favor the life of the individual 
or the propagation of the race. 

That natural selection expresses a principle actually 
existing in nature can scarcely be doubted. It rests 
upon no hypothetical foundation. The laws of hered- 
ity and variation and the tendency to geometrical in- 
crease are unquestionable truths, and the principle of 
natural selection seems to be an inevitable corollary 
from them. The theory has a charm for the philo- 
sophic mind in its wonderful simplicity. In that char- 

^73 



The Origin of Species 

acteristic it reminds one of Newton's theory of univer- 
sal gravitation. 

It should further be noticed that natural selection is 
exactly adapted to the explanation of the process of 
evolution of living beings, in that it accounts at once 
for long periods of stability and for periods of com- 
paratively rapid change. In other words, natural se- 
lection is at times a conservative and at other times a 
progressive force. Let us suppose that a species has 
become, no matter how, substantially adapted to its 
environment. Its size, form, color, instincts, habits, 
mode of reproduction, are all so completely adapted to 
its environment that it just fits the place in the polity 
of nature in which it finds itself. In that condition the 
effect of natural selection must be conservative; for, 
since the species has become substantially adapted to its 
environment, any considerable change will be likely to 
be injurious. Natural selection will therefore stamp 
out all variations that diverge widely from the parent 
stock, and will tend to keep the race, generation after 
generation, true to its specific character. But now let 
us make a simple supposition, such as, according to 
geological evidence, has been realized again and again 
in the past. Let us suppose that a certain portion of 
the earth's crust experiences a movement of elevation, 
with the result of converting an archipelago into a con- 
tinuous area of continental land. Consider how far- 
reaching must be the effects of such a geographical 
change. First of all, in the immediate locality of the 
upheaval, an area of sea is converted into land, and 

174 



A Conservative and a Progressive Force 

this necessitates a migration of the aquatic animals. 
Secondly, the crustal movement will produce greater 
or less climatic change. Elevation of land produces 
directly a lowering of temperature, amounting, on the 
average, to about one degree Fahrenheit for every 
three hundred feet of elevation. But the indirect ef- 
fects of such an elevation may be very much greater 
than the direct effects. The change of sea into land 
may change the direction of ocean currents, which ex- 
ert a most potent influence in the transfer of heat from 
lower to higher latitudes and in the transfer of cold 
from higher to lower latitudes. If the movement is 
not purely local, but is a part of a general move- 
ment of continental emergence, attended by a gen- 
eral diminution in the areas of shallow sea adjoin- 
ing the continents, there will be a tendency, as 
has been shown by Chamberlin in his interesting 
discussion of the causes of the Glacial period, to 
make a colder climate all over the globe, by dimin- 
ishing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmos- 
phere.* Thirdly, the changing of a group of islands 
into a continuous area of continental land will give 
opportunity for species that had been confined to 
particular islands to extend their range by active or 
passive migration throughout the territory which is 
now continuous. In this way many species will be" 
brought into competition with new rivals, or exposed 
to attacks of new enemies. Many species will be com- 
pelled to live upon different kinds of food, and to make 

* See page 73. 



The Origin of Species 

other changes in their habits. It is not too much to say 
that so simple a change as the supposed crustal eleva- 
tion will throw almost every species of plant or animal 
that had previously lived on the land or in the shallow 
seas of the territory in question more or less out of 
harmony with its environment. Under these condi- 
tions, natural selection will cease to be a conservative 
force, and will become a progressive force. The aver- 
age character of each species in the area being no 
longer adapted to its environment, variations in certain 
directions will give to their possessors an advantage in 
the struggle for life; and individuals thus varying will 
now be selected to survive to maturity, instead of those 
that keep most nearly true to the average character of 
the species in former generations. 

If it be true that the various species of animals and 
plants have arisen by a gradual process of evolution, 
v^e ought to find indications thereof in the relations 
existing between different species and in the relations 
of organisms to time and space. The limits of this dis- 
cussion will allow us to do little more than to give a 
sort of inventory of the indications of evolution — the 
growth-marks — that may be recognized in the present 
condition of plants and animals. For fuller illustra- 
tion of the subject reference may be made to the books 
in which the argument in favor of evolution is pre- 
sented more fully. Or perhaps one might better say, 
for fuller illustration of those relations of plants and 
animals that are suggestive of evolution, the student 
may refer to any modern book on any department of 

176 



Homology 

natural history; for no one can appreciatively study 
zoology or botany, comparative anatomy or embry- 
ology, geographical distribution or paleontology, with- 
out finding everywhere illustrations of evolution. 

One of these marks of growth is seen in the preserva- 
tion of homology of structure in organs appropriated 
to widely different uses. A classical example of this 
sort is seen in the structure of the limbs of vertebrates. 
The arm of a man, the fore leg of an ordinary mam- 
malian or reptilian quadruped, the wing of a bird, a 
bat, or a pterodactyl, the flipper of a whale — are all 
constructed on the same plan. The pectoral fins of 
fishes are conformed to the same plan in its general 
outline, though with much greater differences in the 
details. Now such a relation is perfectly intelligible, if 
all these animals have had a common ancestry, and all 
have inherited from that common ancestry a common 
type of structure, which has never been lost, but which 
has been more or less modified in adaptation to varying 
conditions and varying modes of life. It is not, how- 
ever, easy to see why those organs should all have the 
same plan of structure if each one has been created in- 
dependently of any relation to any of the others. The 
teleological suggestion that that plan of structure is 
maintained in all these organs because it is the only 
plan, or at least the best plan, for organs appropriated 
to all those different functions, is obviously inadmis- 
sible, since we find in other branches of the animal 
kingdom organs for every one of these functions — or- 
gans for prehension, for walking, for flying, and for 

177 



The Origin of Species 



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178 



Rudimentary Organs 

Swimming — constructed on plans which present no re- 
semblance whatever to the plan of vertebrate limbs. 
The invalidity of the teleological explanation appears 
yet more manifest when we notice that the degrees of 
resemblance in structure between the various forms of 
limbs that have been referred to are by no means pro- 
portional to the degrees of resemblance in function. 
The function of a bat's wing is essentially the same as 
that of a bird's wing, yet the bat's wing has a very 
close resemblance in structure to the arm of a man or 
the fore leg of a dog, while its resemblance in structure 
to the wing of a bird is very much less close. In like 
manner, the function of the whale's flipper is obviously 
much more similar to the fish's fin than to the man's 
arm or the dog's leg, yet the flipper of the w^hale struc- 
turally resembles the fish's fin only in the broadest and 
most general outlines of its plan, while its resemblance 
to the arm of a man or the leg of a dog is far more 
close and detailed. The inference is an irresistible one 
that the structure of these various organs has not been 
determined primarily by the teleological conditions, but 
by something entirely different. 

An argument of the same sort, but, if possible, even 
more coiiclusive, is drawn from rudimentary organs. 
By rudiftientary organs we mean organs which in par- 
ticular species are apparently destitute of function. In 
these species the organs in question are generally very 
small and more or less imperfect in structure, whereas 
in other species more or less closely allied the corre- 
sponding organs are of full size and complete develop- 

179 



The Origin of Species 

ment, and perform their normal functions. Rudi- 
mentary organs are by no means a rarity in organic 
nature, being found in almost every group of animals 
and plants and in almost every part of the organism. 
A single example will illustrate at once the meaning of 
rudimentary organs and their bearing upon the ques- 
tion of evolution. In ordinary beetles the posterior 
wings are used for flying, while the anterior wings are 
thickened and hardened, and serve only as protective 
covers beneath which the posterior wings are folded 
away when at rest. There are, however, many beetles 
which are destitute of the power of flight. In some of 
these we may find a pair of little posterior wings con- 
cealed under the wing covers, which are soldered to- 
gether along the middle of the back, so that the covers 
can never be opened, and the wings can never be 
spread. On the theory of evolution, the presence of 
these unused posterior wings is perfectly intelligible. 
The beetles that possess them, though now destitute 
of the power of flight, are the modified descendants of 
other beetles that did fly ; and, though they have ceased 
to spread their wings, they still possess wings of small 
size, which they have inherited from their flying an- 
cestors. Apart from the idea of evolution, the only 
conceivable explanation of such useless organs would 
be in some sort of Platonic conception of an archetype 
in the Creative Mind, according to which all beetles 
were created. But, if any one finds satisfaction in the 
thought that the Creator was pleased to fashion all 
beetles according to a coleopterous archetype, and that 

1 80 



Embryology 

the possession of posterior wings was a part of the 
character of that archetype, his satisfaction will soon 
be disturbed by learning that there are other flightless 
beetles which are entirely destitute of wings. Evi- 
dently, then, the Creator has not been pleased to create 
all flightless beetles with wings according to the cole- 
opterous archetype, but only some of them. The the- 
ory of evolution gives a satisfactory explanation both 
of the presence of wings in some flightless beetles and 
of their absence in others. We have only to suppose 
that different families or genera of beetles at different 
times have so changed their habits as to abandon the 
exercise of flight. Those groups of beetles in which 
that change has been a comparatively recent one, still 
retain wings in a more or less reduced condition; but 
those groups of beetles in which the disuse of the 
power of flight has continued for a much longer series 
of generations, have completely lost the wings. The 
presence of a rudimentary organ marks an interme- 
diate stage between the complete and functional devel- 
opment of the organ and its total loss. 

Other indications of genetic relationship between 
different species are furnished by the facts of embry- 
ology. All animals above the unicellular protozoa 
commence life in the condition of a single cell, the 
ovum, which is .obviously a condition essentially similar 
to the permanent condition of the protozoa. Some- 
what later, in the development of the multicellular ani- 
mals, appears what has been called the gastrula stage, 
which appears to be, though with much variation in 

i8i 



The Origin of Species 

detail, essentially the same thing in all. The gastrula, 
when most typically developed, is a sac formed of two 
layers of cells, the outer and the inner layer being 
more or less distinctly differentiated from each other. 
It is a very noteworthy fact that these two layers of 
cells which form the gastrula have respectively the 




Fig. 10. — Six stages in the development of the gastrula in Am- 
phioxus (a very low type of vertebrate). From Gegenbaur's 
" Vergleichende Anatomie der Wirbelthiere." 

same destination in all animals. The outer layer 
always forms the epidermis, and, in those animals 
which have a well differentiated nervous system, it 
forms also the nervous centers and the essential parts 
of the sense organs. While the tissues derived from 
the outer layer of the gastrula are uniformly the ones 
which are in relation to the external world, the internal 
layer of the gastrula develops with equal constancy the 

182 



The Gastrula 

epithelial lining of the alimentary canal and its append- 
ages. In some of the lower multicellular animals, as, 
for instance, the coelentera, the adult development 
passes little beyond the gastrula stage. The adult body 
consists of a double-walled sac, whose single cavity is 
essentially a digestive cavity, and whose wall exhibits 
but slight development of any tissues between the in- 
tegument and the lining of the digestive cavity. In 
the higher animals, however, a great variety of tissues 
come to be developed between the epidermis and the 
alimentary mucous membrane. But, however great the 
complexity of these intermediate tissues, the destiny 
of the primitive layers of the gastrula remains essen- 
tially the same. This similarity in the early stages 
of development, and this essential homology of 
the epidermis and of the epitheHum of the alimentary 
canal in all multicellular animals, are profoundly sug- 
gestive of a unity of origin for the whole animal 
kingdom. 

Not only do we find in the very earliest stages of 
development an essential unity pervading the whole 
animal kingdom, but, in later stages of development, 
we find a very general law that immature conditions 
of the higher or more specialized animals exhibit 
greater or less resemblance to lower or less specialized 
animals more or less closely allied to them. A larval 
crab (brachyuran) has a long jointed tail (abdomen) 
like that of a lobster (macruran) ; but, in its later de- 
velopment, other parts of the body increase in size out 
of all proportion to the tail, which thus becomes the 

183 



The Origin of Species 

insignificant rudiment which characterizes the adult 
crab. At a certain stage in the development of man, 
or any other mammal, the heart is a two-chambered 
organ like that of a fish, and the aorta passing forward 
from the heart divides right and left into a series of 
branches like the branchial arches of a fish. Some of 
these arches of the aorta become obliterated in the sub- 
sequent process of development. Others are converted 
into the main arterial trunks of the systemic and pul- 
monary circulation. In the same stage of the embryo 
in which the aortic arches may be seen branching right 
and left from the main stem of the aorta, the cavity of 
the pharynx extends itself on each side into a series 
of pouches, which nearly meet a corresponding series 
of depressions on the sides of the neck. In fishes these 
pouches open externally, the openings being the gill slits 
which are so conspicuous in the neck of a shark. It 
has been commonly asserted that such perforations are 
formed in the embryos of all vertebrates; but more 
recent studies seem to indicate that, in the mammalian 
embryo, at the stage of fullest development of the 
pharyngeal pouches, a thin membrane separates each 
pouch from the corresponding external depression. It 
is, however, none the less obvious that these pouches 
and the corresponding external depressions are homol- 
ogous with the gill pouches and gill slits of a shark. In 
the adult mammal these structures are obliterated, with 
the exception of one on each side. In the case of that 
one, the pharyngeal pouch becomes the Eustachian 
tube, the external depression becomes the external 

184 




Fig. 11. — Three successive stages of embryos in four classes of 
vertebrates. A, shark; B, salamander; C, chick; D, man. 
The formation of gill slits is seen in the earliest stage of all 
alike ; but the slits are seen to persist in the fish, and to dis- 
appear in the others. From Romanes' "Darwin and After 
Darwin." 



The Origin of Species 

auditory meatus, and the membrane between them 
(with some modification) becomes the tympanic 
membrane. 

If we were converting a Roman trireme into a steam- 
boat, we should find it convenient to plug up most of 
the oar-holes, though it might be advantageous to keep 
some of them for use as port-holes; but, if we were 
building a steamboat de novo, it would be an absurd 
procedure to bore a series of holes almost through its 
sides, simply that we might have the opportunity to 
plug them up.* 

The law that immature stages of higher or more 
specialized organisms tend to resemble the adult forms 
of lower or less specialized organisms, is of very wide 
application. In many cases, however, the law fails to 
be exemplified by reason of adaptive modifications in 
the larval stages. The developing organism must pos- 
sess at every stage a structure adapted to the conditions 
of life in which it is placed ; otherwise it could not live. 
It is often the case that the conditions of life to which 
immature and larval forms are subject, are entirely 
different from those under which the adults will live, 
and equally different from the conditions in which 
lived those lower or less specialized creatures which are 
supposed to have been their ancestors. Under these 
conditions, structures are developed in the larva which 
have no relation to their ancestry, but are determined 
solely by their present conditions of life. 

The parallelism that may often be traced between 

*Conn, Evolution of To-day^ p. 132. 
186 



Triple Parallelism 

a series of organisms in the order of systemic rank and 
a series of embryonic and larval stages in the develop- 
ment of the highest and most specialized forms, de- 
rives additional significance for the evolutionist when 
we can recognize a third series parallel to these two, 
namely, the series of forms in successive geological 
periods. Many illustrations might be given of this 
triple parallelism — the parallelism of embryonic de- 
velopment, systemic rank, and geological succession. 
That we do not find such a triple parallelism univer- 
sally exhibited is easily explained ; on the one hand, by 
the adaptive modifications of larval and immature 
forms to which reference has just been made, and, on 
the other, by the imperfection of our knowledge of 
extinct forms of life. 

In very many respects the order of succession of 
species in geological time is what we should naturally 
expect on the theory of evolution.* The most con- 
spicuous aspect of the general succession of forms in 
geological time is the continuous approximation to the 
character of the fauna and flora of the present day. 
The Cambrian fauna and flora differ widely from those 
of the present day. No species, and not more than 
one or two genera, of organisms now living existed in 
the Cambrian ; and to a large extent even the orders 
and classes of the present fauna and flora were lacking 
in the Cambrian. As we come down through the suc- 
cession of geological eras, there is a continuous ap- 

* Heilprin, Geological Evidences of Evolution ; Dana, /Revised Text-book of 
GeologVy p. 450. 

187 



The Origin of Species 

proximation to the character of the fauna and flora of 
the present time. With this increasing resemblance of 
the life of successive geological periods to that of to- 
day, comes an increase in the number of classes and 
orders, and a continually increasing diversification of 
the types of structure. The classes and orders repre- 
sented in Cambrian time are comparatively few. In 
the progress of geological time, very few groups, if 
any, entitled to rank as classes have become entirely 
extinct, though several classes have greatly diminished 
in numbers. Many new classes have been added from 
time to time; some orders have become extinct, but 
a much greater number of new orders have been 
added ; so that there has been in general a continuous 
increase in the number of groups of classical and or- 
dinal rank. This progressive diversification of the ani- 
mal and vegetable kingdoms suggests the figure of a 
tree. In the Cambrian we have already a few great 
branches representing most of the sub-kingdoms that 
now exist; but the increase in the number of classes 
and orders, as we come down through geological time, 
reminds us of the increasing ramification which the 
tree exhibits as we go farther and farther from the 
origin of the main branches. 

Not only do we find in successive geological periods 
an Increasing number of classes and orders, but we find 
also In later periods an Increasing number of types of 
high grade.* In the earlier geological periods the 
higher forms of life are conspicuously absent. In the 

* See table on page 103. 
188 



Paleontology and Evolution 

Cambrian we find no vertebrates whatever, and in the 
Silurian no vertebrates above the class of fishes. Mam- 
mals do not appear until the Triassic, and the typical 
placental mammals probably not until the Tertiary. 
Among invertebrates perhaps the highest class are the 
insects. These are entirely unrepresented in the Cam- 
brian, and in the Ordovician we find only one or two 
of the very lowest orders. Not until Mesozoic time do 
the higher orders of insects appear. Among mollusks 
the highest class, the cephalopods, begins indeed in the 
Cambrian, but the higher of the two sub-classes of 
that class, the dibranchia, not until the Triassic. The 
higher orders of gastropods likewise do not appear 
until the Triassic. In general, it may be said that the 
highest of the sub-kingdoms, the highest classes in the 
respective sub-kingdoms, and the highest orders in the 
respective classes, are comparatively late in their ap- 
pearance. It is needless to say, this condition of things 
is exactly what might be expected in accordance with 
the theory of evolution. 

Another class of paleontological facts favorable to 
the theory of evolution is seen in the striking resem- 
blance which the earliest members of a class or order 
generally present to groups that were already in ex- 
istence. The earliest amphibians were not at all like 
the toads and salamanders of to-day, but were in many 
respects much like some of the ancient fishes that pre- 
ceded them. In these earliest amphibians, as in many 
fishes, the clavicles are still in the condition of dermal 
bones forming a defensive armor in the pectoral region 

189 



The Origin of Species 

of the body. They had not yet come to be internal 
bones serving solely to brace the shoulder girdle. The 
earliest birds, which made their appearance in the 
Jurassic, showed remarkable reptilian characters. Their 
jaws were set with rows of teeth ; the metacarpal bones 
(see Fig. 9) were still free and somewhat movable, as 
in the forefoot of a reptile, instead of being ankylosed 
together to make a more rigid basis for the attachment 
of feathers ; their tails were supported by a long series 
of vertebrae, in sharp contrast with the tails of modern 
birds, whose imperfectly developed vertebrae are con- 
solidated into a mere stump to support a fan-shaped 
tuft of feathers. In like manner, the earliest mammals, 
appearing in the Triassic, almost certainly resembled 
reptiles in having distinct coracoid bones, in the struc- 
ture of their reproductive organs, and in their ovipa- 
rous reproduction. Again, in early Tertiary time, the 
earliest hoofed mammals (ungulata) were scarcely 
distinguishable from the claw-bearing mammals (un- 
guiculata) with which they were associated. In the 
highly specialized forms which have been developed in 
later times, the ungulates are very sharply distinguished 
from the unguiculate orders. In the unguiculate 
mammals, the radius and ulna are generally so artic- 
ulated as to allow^ considerable rotation of the fore-arm, 
the bones of the hand and foot are considerably mov- 
able, the digits are almost always five in number, and 
each digit is armed with a claw for seizing and tear- 
ing the food, or rarely with a flat nail for protection. 
In the ungulates, the radius and ulna are so articulated 

190 



Progressive Specialization 

as to allow no rotation of the fore-arm, or even fused 
together into a single bone, the bones of the hand and 
foot allow but little movement, the digits are generally 
less than the typical number, being sometimes reduced 
even to two or one, and the end of each digit is encased 
in a horny box or shoe which we call the hoof. The 
general effect of these anatomical characteristics of the 
ungulates is, of course, to deprive the limbs entirely of 
tactile and prehensile function, leaving them to serve 
exclusively for support and locomotion. But in the 
early Tertiary the primitive ungulates have diverged 
so slightly from the unguiculates that it is almost by 
an arbitrary line that they are separated from them in 
the classification. Perhaps the most striking illustra- 
tion of this increasing specialization of a group with 
the lapse of time is seen in that remarkable series of 
fossil forms by which we can trace the gradation from 
a creature with five fingers and five toes to the modern 
horse. In this remarkable series, the inner and the 
outer fingers and toes successively diminish and dis- 
appear, until only the middle finger and the middle toe 
are left (see Fig. 9), while the bones of the limbs in- 
crease in length, and the teeth increase in complexity. 
Again, it is noticed, as a rule, in geological history 
that a group of animals or plants which has once dis- 
appeared does not reappear. The few apparent excep- 
tions to this law may be readily accounted for on the 
principle of the imperfection of the geological record, 
of which somewhat will be said later.* In general, the 

* Page 202. 
191 



The Origin of Species 

introduction and the extinction of orders or classes 
seem to have been gradual. Each group commences 
with a comparatively small number of species, and in- 
creases gradually to a maximum, after which it may 
again decline. As has been already shown,* in tracing 
the overthrow of catastrophism and the rise of uni- 
formitarianism, it has long been acknowledged that 
there is no reason to believe in any epoch of universal 
extermination since the beginning of life upon the 
planet. The changes that have taken place in the 
faunas and floras of successive eras have been not by 
universal extermination and new creation, but by the 
disappearance of old species and the introduction of 
new species one by one. In all these respects it is 
obvious that the aspect of the geological succession of 
life is strongly favorable to the theory of evolution. 

The distribution of plants and animals in space, like 
their distribution in time, corresponds in general with 
what would be expected on the theory of evolution. 
The theory of evolution, of course, assumes that all the 
individuals of a single species are derived from a com- 
mon ancestry. By this it is not meant that they are all 
descended from a single individual or from a single 
pair, for this is not likely to have been the case with 
any species of animal or plant; but rather that they 
have descended from a comparatively small number 
of individuals in some limited area. It is further sup- 
posed that a species, starting thus in a limited area, dif- 
fuses itself by active and passive migration until its 

* Pages 155, t6i. 
192 



Geographical Distribution 

spread is checked by impassable barriers, inhospitable 
climate, or unfavorable conditions of life. We should, 
then, expect that the range of each particular species 
would be continuous. As a matter of fact, we find that 
the range of species is generally continuous, and the 
exceptional cases in which the range of a species is not 
strictly continuous generally admit of ready explana- 
tion. For instance, if we find colonies of plants and 
insects that belong in Greenland or Labrador living 
on the higher summits of the White Mountains, or 
find, in like manner, colonies of plants and insects that 
belong in Lapland living in the Alps, the fact is readily 
explained by reference to the Glacial period. The 
northern forms of life migrated southw^ard (actively 
or passively) at that time; and, when the main body 
of a northern species migrated northward again as the 
climate grew^ warmer, colonies that had become estab- 
lished on mountain summits w^ere able permanently to 
maintain themselves, because the cold climate of high 
mountain regions shielded them from the competition 
of the southern forms that had taken possession of the 
lowlands. Moreover, according to the theory of evolu- 
tion, all the species of a single genus ought to have 
had a common ancestry, but, in general, further back 
in time than we should look for the common ancestry 
of the individuals of a single species. We should nat- 
urally expect, then, that the range of genera w^ould 
generally be continuous ; but that, since the origin of a 
genus is likel}^ to liave been more remote in time than 
the origin of a species, there would have been opportu- 

193 



The Origin of Species 

nity for a larger number of those geographical changes 
which break up the continuity of what was previously 
a continuous area. In general, then, the range of 
genera should be either actually continuous, or capable 
of being made continuous by such geographical or cli- 
matic changes as it is within the bounds of reasonable 
probability to assume to have taken place in geological 
time not very remote. The facts in regard to the range 
of genera exactly correspond with this assumption. 
On the other hand, the theory of evolution would im- 
ply that the origin of the more comprehensive groups, 
as classes and sub-kingdoms, must belong to a very 
remote antiquity, antedating by far the present distri- 
bution of sea and land and the development of most 
of the mountain ranges and other conspicuous features 
of the earth's surface. Since, then, the origin of these 
more comprehensive groups antedates the establish- 
ment of the present geographical features, we should 
naturally expect that the distribution of these groups 
would be substantially world-wide; and, again, this 
supposition is exactly in accord with the facts. 

The bearing of the facts of geographical distribu- 
tion upon the theory of evolution appears more signifi- 
cant when we take them in connection with the facts 
of geological succession. Wallace announced many 
years ago the remarkable proposition, that "every spe- 
cies has come into existence coincident both in space 
and time with a pre-existing closely allied species."* 
It would be impossible actually to prove that proposi- 

* Contributions to the Theory of Nattiral Selection^ p. 5, 
194 



Geographical and Geological Distribution 

tion in regard to every known species, since our knowl- 
edge of extinct life is so far from being complete. 
Nevertheless, the proposition can be shown to be true 
in so many instances that there is no reasonable doubt 
that it is to be accepted as a universal law. It is need- 
less to say that the theory of evolution would require 
just such a relation as is expressed in Wallace's for- 
mula. Not only does it seem to be true that every spe- 
cies has come into existence in a region where there 
was already some nearly allied species; we find also 
in certain regions that the general character of whole 
faunas in successive geological periods presents extra- 
ordinary resemblances. In late Tertiary and Quater- 
nary time, Australia had already become the land of 
kangaroos, phalangers, and wombats. Australia is to- 
day likewise the land of kangaroos, phalangers, and 
wombats. The Tertiary and Quaternary species have 
become extinct, but the same families survive. In like 
manner, in late Tertiary and Quaternary time. South 
America was the land of sloths, ant-eaters, and arma- 
dillos, and South America to-day is still the land of 
sloths, ant-eaters, and armadillos. Now, on the sup- 
position that the present kangaroos are the descendants 
of the Tertiary kangaroos, and the present sloths the 
descendants of the Tertiary sloths, these facts are ex- 
actly what we should expect. Apart from the theory 
of evolution, it is not easy to find a satisfactory reason 
for such facts. The teleological suggestion that kanga- 
roos, phalangers, and wombats are better adapted to 
the climate and the conditions of life in Australia than 

195 



The Origin of Species 

any other animals, seems not to be true, for we know 
that sheep and rabbits and other creatures introduced 
into Austraha from Europe prove so exceedingly well 
adapted to the climate and conditions of life in that 
continent that their rapid multiplication threatens to 
starve out many of the indigenous species. 

Another consideration bearing strongly in favor of 
the theory of evolution is the indefiniteness of zoolog- 
ical and botanical classification. In the first place, there 
is great difference of opinion among naturalists in 
many cases as to the units of classification, the species. 
One naturalist will divide a genus into twenty or thirty 
species, while another will recognize only two or three 
species, regarding the others as mere varieties. It is 
a paradoxical, but nevertheless a perfectly intelligible 
fact, that the difficulty in the delimitation of species is 
greatest in those groups of animals and plants which 
have been most thoroughly studied, and in the faunas 
and floras of those regions of the earth which are best 
known. If a traveler makes a hasty journey through 
some hitherto unexplored part of central Africa, and 
brings back such specimens as his caravan can readily 
transport, it will generally be found that he has col- 
lected only a single specimen, or at the most a few 
specimens, of each species ; and a naturalist who classi- 
fies and names them will find it easy to determine how 
many species are represented, since almost every speci- 
men will represent a distinct species. But, in a country 
like England or New England, where hundreds or 
thousands of specimens of most species of plant and 

iq6 



Indefiniteness of Classification 

animal have been collected and examined, it will often 
be found that some of the specimens of any one species 
vary considerably from the average character of their 
own species, and approach more or less the character 
of some allied species. The greater the number of 
specimens collected, the more likely are such grada- 
tional forms to appear; and, with the appearance of 
such gradational forms, the question arises whether 
w^e are dealing with a number of species, or wath a 
single species presenting a number of varieties. That 
is exactly what we should expect on the theory of evo- 
lution, and exactly what we should not expect apart 
from the theory of evolution. 

When \YQ turn our attention from the taxonomic 
unit, the species, to the more comprehensive groups — 
when we consider the division of the animal or the 
vegetable kingdom into sub-kingdoms, classes, orders, 
and families — it is perfectly safe to say that no two 
naturalists can agree in all details upon a classification 
either in botany or in zoology, unless they reach an 
agreement by the same method of compromise by 
which political conventions construct platforms and 
ecclesiastical assemblies construct creeds. By mutual 
compromise, two or more naturalists may, of course, 
construct a classification of the vegetable or the animal 
kingdom, which will not represent exactly the opinions 
of any one of them, but which no one of them will 
think very bad. Groups of plants and animals that 
seem to be clearly marked by trenchant characters, 
when we consider only their most typical members, 

197 



The Origin of Species 

seem in some of their aberrant forms to blend with 
each other hke the colors of the spectrum. 

These are some of the aspects of organic nature that 
are eminently suggestive of the theory of evolution. 
As has been already said, the limits of this discussion 
have allowed only an inventory of the classes of evi- 
dence. The cumulative force of that evidence reveals 
itself only in prolonged study of some one or other of 
the departments of biology. 

The mass of evidence which organic nature affords 
in favor of evolution is usually met by the opponents 
of evolution with a single stock argument. They say 
that, if one species is derived from another species, we 
ought to find close gradations between different spe- 
cies ; and this, they tell us, we do not find. A species 
is usually clearly marked. There is no danger of mis- 
taking a tiger for a leopard, or a grizzly bear for a 
polar bear. 

It is, however, not true, in the unqualified way in 
which that proposition is often asserted, that species 
are sharply marked, and that intermediate stages are 
wanting. The fact to which reference has already 
been made, that naturalists often differ widely as to 
the number of species included in a well-known genus, 
shows that species are not limited in all cases in the 
definite and unmistakable way which is often asserted. 
There are, indeed, few better examples of the logical 
fallacy of reasoning in a circle, than the way in which 
the evidence afforded by gradational forms is disposed 
of by the opponents of evolution. If, between two 

198 



Absence of Gradation between Species 

types which differ considerably from each other, and 
which have been confidently supposed to be distinct 
species, further investigation discovers a series of gra- 
dational forms, those two extreme types with all the 
intermediate gradations are combined into a single 
species, which is then said to be widely variable. And 
then the anti-evolutionist is able to affirm that, while 
there are gradations between varieties, there are no 
gradations between species. Of course the evidence of 
gradation between types that appear very distinct is 
not lessened by giving to the extreme types one specific 
name instead of two. The fact of gradation is sug- 
gestive of evolution, however much it may be dis- 
guised by a change of nomenclature. 

Nevertheless, though the assertion that species are 
definitely limited is not true in the unqualified way in 
which that assertion is often made, it does appear to 
be true of the larger number of existing species. As 
a rule, we do not find a series of fine gradations be- 
tween two existing species. But, according to the 
theory of evolution, we ought not to expect in most 
cases to find such a series of gradations. The evolu- 
tionist does not assume, in general, that one species 
has been derived from another species which still ex- 
ists. Only under exceptional conditions could that be 
the case. As we have already seen, the condition of 
the evolution of a new species is that the environment 
should have so changed that the parent type is no 
longer in harmony with it. As a rule, then, the very 
condition that gives rise to the evolution of a new 

199 



The Origin of Species 

species secures the extinction of the old species. An 
exception to this rule would be found in a case in which 
some members of a species became in some way isolated 
from the remainder of the species, and the two groups 
isolated from each other were exposed to somewhat 
different environment. In such cases a new species 
might be developed in one area, while the parent spe- 
cies might survive in another. In this way may be 
explained the frequent occurrence of peculiar species 
in islands, while the nearly allied species from which 
they have probably been derived still survive on the 
mainland. But it is obvious that in the majority of 
cases the evolution of a new species must be accom- 
panied by the extinction of the parent species. We 
ought, then, to expect as a rule no fine series of grada- 
tions between existing species. 

This answer, however, only shifts the difficulty to 
another point. If we have at the present time two 
closely allied species, A and\B, the probability is not 
that A was derived from B, or that B was derived from 
A, but rather that each of the two existing species was 
derived from some species C, now extinct. While, 
therefore, there is no reason to expect a series of grada- 
tions between A and B, there must have existed in the 
past a series of gradations more or less close between 
C and A and between C and B. The theory of evolu- 
tion, then, requires a series of more or less fine grada- 
tions between every species and some other species that 
preceded it in geological time. 

It must be admitted that, in the great majority of 
200 



Absence of Gradation in Fossil Forms 

cases, we do not find any such gradational forms pre- 
served as fossils. In general, if allowance is made for 
the fragmentary and imperfect character of the mate- 
rial with which the paleontologist has to deal, species 
of fossil organisms appear to be fully as well defined 
as those of living organisms. And not only do species 
appear in geological history without any series of gra- 
dational forms connecting them with pre-existing spe- 
cies, but in many cases more comprehensive groups, 
as orders or classes, appear to flash suddenly into ex- 
istence with no more recognizable trace of ancestry 
than if they were so many Melchizedeks. The most 
startling of all cases of this sort is the Cambrian fauna. 
Prior to the Cambrian we find only obscure and doubt- 
ful traces of life, but in the beginning of the Cambrian 
we find already a highly diversified fauna of marine 
invertebrates. In statistical comparisons of fossil fau- 
nas with the existing fauna, those groups must ob- 
viously be thrown out of account whose members pos- 
sess no skeletons, since it is only under very exceptional 
conditions that such groups can be represented by fos- 
sils.* In the scheme of classification adopted in Parker 
and Haswell's ''Text-book of Zoology," there are nine 
phyla or sub-kingdoms, and twenty-nine classes, some 
or all of whose members possess skeletal structures 
sufficiently developed to entitle them to be included in 
such a comparison. It is certainly an astonishing fact 
that seven out of these nine sub-kingdoms, and fourteen 

* The improbable does sometimes happen. Fossil jellyfishes occur in the 
Cambrian, and in later formations. 

201 



The Origin of Species 

out of these twenty-nine classes are represented in the 
Cambrian.* 

Darwin, in his "Origin of Species," declared that, in 
his view, such paleontological facts as those just cited 
afforded the ''most obvious and serious objection" 
against his theory. It is certain that the facts of pale- 
ontology appear far more favorable to the theory of 
evolution to-day than they did forty years ago, for the 
progress of discovery has brought to light a vast num- 
ber of intermediate forms between types previously 
known, and has bridged many of the most conspicuous 
gaps. Nevertheless, so many gaps still remain un- 
bridged that Darwin's answer to the objection, as it 
presented itself to his mind, is still appropriate; and 
indeed our belief in evolution must stand or fall ac- 
cording to the sufficiency of that answer. Darwin's 
answer to the paleontological objection to evolution 
was given In a chapter of his book the title of which 
has now become classic — "The Imperfection of the 
Geological Record. "f By that phrase he meant that 
the fossils which have been collected and preserved in 
museums are not, as is vaguely supposed by those who 

* The seven sub-kingdoms represented are Porifera, Ccelenterata, Mollusco- 
ida, Echinodermata, Annulata, Arthropoda, Mollusca. The classes represented 
are Porifera, Hydrozoa, Actinozoa, Brachiopoda, Asteroidea, Crinoidea, Cy- 
stoidea, Ch^etopoda, Crustacea, Trilobita, Arachnida, Pelecypoda, Gastropoda, 
Cephalopoda. All these groups except the Asteroidea, Crinoidea, Arachnida, 
and Cephalopoda, were represented in the Georgian, the lowest of the three 
divisions of the Cambrian. The absence of the sub-kingdom Protozoa and 
class Rhizopoda from this list is remarkable. On a priori grounds, it would 
seem highly probable that they were in existence, but their existence has not 
yet been proved by the evidence of well-characterized fossils. In this state- 
ment I have followed the classification of Parker and Haswell, since their ex- 
cellent text-book is widely accepted as a standard, though I do not in all 
respects agree with the views of which the classification is the expression. 

t Ch. ix in the earlier editions, ch. x in the later editions, 

202 



Imperfection of the Geological Record 

have never studied the subject, an approximately com- 
plete representation of the faunas and floras of the 
past, but are in fact only an infinitesimal remnant of 
those faunas and floras. The sentence in which Dar- 
win sums up his conclusions in regard to the imperfec- 
tion of the geological record is worth quoting entire : — 
"I look at the natural geological record as a history of 
the world imperfectly kept, and written in a changing 
dialect. Of this history we possess the last volume 
alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this 
volume only here and there a short chapter has been 
preserved, and of each page only here and there a few 
lines." I believe that this sentence is no exaggeration ; 
that, in fact, it hardly does justice to the extreme in- 
completeness of that record of past life which is af- 
forded us by fossils. 

A striking testimony to the imperfection of the geo- 
logical record is borne by the fact that multitudes of 
fossil species are known only by single specimens. Of 
course we must suppose that every species that ever 
existed included many millions of individuals; and, 
if an extinct species is now represented in our col- 
lections only by a single specimen, the fact shows at 
once that our collections of fossils are but an infini- 
tesimal remnant of the life that has existed. But not 
only is it often the case that a species is represented by 
only a single specimen ; oftentimes, in some particular 
formation, a whole order, or even a whole class, may 
be represented by a very small number of specimens. 
In the Jurassic era in Europe, the class of birds is 

203 



The Origin of Species 

represented by two somewhat imperfect skeletons and 
one odd feather. The same class is represented in the 
Jurassic of North America by a single fragment of a 
skull. The class of mammals in the Triassic of North 
America is represented by two lower jaws. In the 
Subcarboniferous formation of Germany has been dis- 
covered a single tolerably well preserved specimen of 
a small creature which has been named Bostrichopus 
antiqims. The creature appears to have been an ar- 
thropod, yet it is so extremely different from any other 
known animal that we cannot with any confidence place 
it in any of the recognized classes of arthropods. Of 
course we must believe that the species to which this 
remarkable relic belongs was represented by multitudes 
of individuals, and it is likewise altogether probable 
that there must have been some considerable number 
of more or less closely allied species. It is exceedingly 
improbable that a single aberrant species should have 
existed in absolute isolation. 

The instances above given are illustrations of the 
fact of the imperfection of the geological record. A 
little reflection will show that, in the nature of the 
case, the geological record must necessarily be very 
imperfect. In the first place, there are biological con- 
ditions which render an approximate completeness of 
the geological record impossible. That an individual 
organism should be preserved in fossil condition, it Is 
necessary in general that it should be buried by sedi- 
mentary accumulations formed under water before its 
material has been completely decomposed or dissolved. 

204 



The Cambrian Fauna 

It is obvious that in the vast majority of cases plants 
and animals die under such conditions that their preser- 
vation as fossils is absolutely impossible. It is evident 
that the chances of fossilization are much greater, other 
things being equal, in the case of a marine organism 
than in the case of a terrestrial organism; and it is 
a fact that in all formations, even the latest, our record 
of the history of terrestrial organisms is scanty indeed. 
Again, it is true, in general, that only the hard parts 
or skeletons of organisms can be preserved. Hence 
those groups of plants which contain little or no woody 
fiber in their tissues, and those groups of animals which 
are destitute of shells, bones, teeth, or other consider- 
ably indurated skeletal structures, have scarcely any 
chance of preservation as fossils. This consideration 
obviously renders it impossible that we should have 
anything approaching a complete representation of the 
genealogy of either animals or plants. The mystery 
of the Cam.brian fauna, as has been suggested by Mr. 
Charles Morris* and by Professor Brooks of Johns 
Hopkins University,f probably admits of at least par- 
tial explanation in the line of the principle just stated. 
It is a fact well known to zoologists that almost every 
important group of marine invertebrates, though the 
animals in their adult condition may be of large size, 
and have heavy skeletons, and live at the bottom of the 
sea, is characterized by a form of larva which is minute 
and destitute of skeleton, and which swims freely at or 

* Life before Fossils^ in Ajnej-ican Naftirah'st, vol. xxx, pp. i88, 279. 
t The Origin of the Oldest Fossils and the Discovery of the Bottom of the 
Ocean, m four nal of Geology, vol. ii, p. 455. 

205 



The Origin of Species 

near the surface of the sea. According to the principle 
which has been already referred to,* that larval and 
immature forms of animals are likely to resemble more 
or less closely the ancestors whence those animals have 
been derived, it is argued with great force that the 
earliest ancestors of each of these groups of marine 
animals must have been characterized by minute size, 
the lack of any considerable skeletal development, and 
a free-swimming life at the surface of the water. Such 
forms could obviously not be preserved as fossils. In 
accordance with this reasoning, we may conclude that 
the probable cause of the absence of any fossils repre- 
senting the ancestors of the Cambrian fauna is that 
those ancestors were incapable of being preserved as 
fossils. The fossil record of marine life commences 
only at that stage of evolution in which some groups 
of organisms had already developed skeletons of con- 
siderable weight and hardness, and had already ex- 
changed their free-swimming life at the surface for a 
more sluggish life at the bottom of the sea. 

There are also geological conditions which render 
impossible a complete record of the life of past ages. 
Many of the sedimentary rocks are altogether unsuited 
to the preservation of fossils. Coarse-grained sedi- 
ments, as sands and gravels, are so porous that any 
shells or other remains of living things which they 
enclose are likely to be dissolved out ; and the irregular 
surfaces of such deposits are incapable of preserving 
any delicate impressions. Recognizable fossils are 

* Page 183. 

206 



Erosion and Metamorphism 

chiefly found in the fine-grained shales, which are 
formed by the consoHdation of mud beds, and in the 
h'mestones, which result from the accumulation of 
debris of shells and corals and other marine skeletons. 
But, after a record has been actually formed in fossil- 
iferous strata, it is liable to obliteration. Whole series 
of strata may in places be disintegrated and destroyed 
by the agencies of the atmosphere and water. The 
large areas of the earth's surface occupied by plutonic 
and metamorphic rocks bear unmistakable testimony 
to the fact of enormous denudation, since such rocks 
could only have assumed their characteristic structure 
under the pressure of hundreds or thousands of feet 
of superincumbent rock. Other fossiliferous rocks 
may have had their fossils entirely obliterated by meta- 
morphism; and still other fossiliferous deposits are 
now covered by the sea or buried beneath superincum- 
bent strata, where they will probably never be acces- 
sible to human investigation. 

It is, moreover, probable that not only species, but 
genera and even more comprehensive groups, may 
have been in their origin confined to limited areas. If 
there were in process of formation in some particular 
locality, at a particular time, no fossiliferous rocks 
which have been preserved, and which are now acces- 
sible to geological study, there would be no record of 
the early stages of existence of a group of organisms 
originating then and there. The earliest accessible 
record of such a group might be made after they had 
already become widely diffused and had become dif- 

207 



The Origin of Species 

ferentiated into a considerable number of species. In 
this way may be explained the frequent occurrence 
in geological history of groups already represented by 
a considerable number of species, of whose ancestry no 
record appears. 

It has already been pointed out* that there is no 
reason to believe that the process of evolution has gone 
on with equal rapidity through all geological time. On 
the contrary, since the condition of the evolution of 
new species is the lack of harmony between existing 
species and their environment, it must be supposed that 
rapid evolutionary changes take place, for the most 
part, only in times of rapid geographical change. In 
the light of this consideration, we recognize the pro- 
found significance of the fact which has already been 
referred to,f in discussing the doctrines of catastro- 
phism and uniformitarianism in geology, that the most 
abrupt changes in fossil faunas and floras usually occur 
at just those points where the series of sediments is 
interrupted by unconformability. As has been already 
explained, the meaning of unconformability is that a 
region where strata have been in process of deposition 
is carried above the water level by crustal movement, 
and for a greater or less period of time exposed to 
erosion. A later crustal movement depresses the re- 
gion again below the water level, and the process of 
deposit of sedimentary strata is resumed. The whole 
interval of time in which elevation, erosion, and sub- 
sidence have taken place is left unrecorded. It will 

* Page 174. t Pages 52, 155. 

208 



Significance of Unconformability 

be noticed that the case is not merely that a period 
of time of greater or less length is left unrecorded. It 
is a period of time in which extensive geographical 
changes have been in progress, and in which, there- 
fore, the processes of evolution have doubtless been 
going on with exceptional rapidity. It is precisely at 
the critical epochs of most rapid change that the geo- 
logical record generally fails us. Darwin's figurative 
suggestion* of the historical volume, most of whose 
leaves have been torn out, may well admit of amplifica- 
tion. The chapters that have been torn out are pre- 
cisely those which should record the most critical 
events, the most rapid changes. The natural geolog- 
ical record is much like a history of the United States 
in which the chapters on the Revolution and the Civil 
War have been torn out. 

In view of all these considerations, it can scarcely be 
doubted that Darwin's principle of the imperfection of 
the geological record is an amply sufficient answer to 
that objection to the theory of evolution which is 
based upon the absence of series of finely gradational 
forms between species and between more comprehen- 
sive groups in geological history. 

We have thus far discussed none of the supposed 
agencies of evolutionary change excepting the Dar- 
winian principle of natural selection. That principle is 
obviously independent of any theory as to the cause 
of variation in general, or as to the cause of variation 
in any particular direction. The theory of natural se- 

* Quoted on page 203. 
209 



The Origin of Species 

lection simply recognizes the unquestionable fact that 
variations continually occur, no two individuals being 
exactly alike. Darwin spoke of variation as fortuitous. 
The expression was an unfortunate one, since people 
who did not understand his real meaning charged him 
with representing that variations occurred by chance. 
It is needless to say that Darwin had no such meaning. 
By fortuitous variation Darwin only meant variation 
whose causes are so completely unknown that we can 
see no reason why it should be any more likely to be 
in one direction than in another. It would have been 
better if he had said indefinite, or indeterminate, varia- 
tion, instead of fortuitous variation. But, while the 
theory of natural selection does not itself postulate any 
cause of variation in any particular direction, it is yet 
entirely consistent with the belief that there may be 
known or unknown causes tending to produce varia- 
tions in a particular direction. There may be, then, 
definite, or determinate variation. It is obvious that the 
evolution of new species would be aided by any causes 
tending to produce determinate variation in desirable 
directions. Natural selection would in that case have 
better material to work upon, and would therefore 
more readily produce the result. 

Several supposed causes of determinate variation 
have been suggested. Some of the Greek philosophers, 
who indulged in crude and vague evolutionary specula- 
tions, assumed the existence in all organisms of an 
innate tendency to improvement, the result of which 
would be a continuous progress from lower to higher 

2IO 



Indeterminate or Determinate Variation 

forms of organization. Innate tendencies, however, 
are not looked upon with as much favor in the philos- 
ophy of to-day as in that of two thousand years ago; 
and a suggestion so vague and so incapable of verifica- 
tion is of no value as a scientific hypothesis. There 
are, however, two supposed causes of determinate va- 
riation which are worthy of serious consideration. The 
first of these is the direct effect of the environment. 
This was urged as the main cause of evolutionary 
change by some of the early French evolutionists, 
notably by Buffon in the eighteenth century, and by 
Etienne Geofifroy Saint Hilaire in the early part of 
the nineteenth century. Differences in climate, food, 
and other conditions of life appear to produce, in many 
cases, during the life of the individual, conspicuous 
differences, in man himself and in domestic animals 
and cultivated plants. The importance of these direct 
effects of environment has been greatly exaggerated 
by some writers ; but the effects are real, and especially 
important in the case of plants. Buffon, Saint Hilaire, 
and others, recognizing the fact of the changes thus 
produced in the lifetime of the individual by the action 
of the environment, assumed that the effects of those 
changes would be in greater or less degree inherited 
by the offspring. 

Lamarck claimed that the most important factor in 
the evolution of animals is not the direct effect of 
environment, but the indirect effect. The environment 
compels the individual to adopt certain habits and 
modes of life, and those habits produce in time perma- 

211 



The Origin of Species 

nent changes in the organism. Lamarck held that 
these indirect effects of environment are capable of 
being inherited, and can therefore be accumulated from 
generation to generation. He explained the long neck 
of the giraffe by assuming that the ancestors of the 
giraffe, living for generation after generation in a re- 
gion v^here grass v^as scarce, and subsistence could be 
obtained only by brov^sing on the leaves of trees, had 
continually stretched their necks in thus seeking their 
food ; and that the effect of the habit, after many gen- 
erations, had been a change from a primitive form, 
which may have been not unlike that of an antelope, 
to the present form of the giraffe. One phase of the 
Lamarckian doctrine v\^hich is especially important is 
the effect of use and disuse. Every one knows that, in 
general, those organs that are much used tend to in- 
crease in size and in perfection of development. The 
-arm of a blacksmith is a very different organ from that 
of a sedentary student, and the brain of the scholar is 
a far better organ than that of a man who has never 
developed an idea beyond the simple manual labor 
which secures his daily food. The special doctrine of 
Lamarck as to the indirect effect of environment upon 
organization by means of habit can, of course, apply 
only to the animal kingdom. Lamarck's theory of 
the evolution of plants was essentially the same as 
that of Saint Hilaire and Buffon. The chief agency 
was supposed to be the direct influence of the 
environment. 

Both Saint Hilaire's principle of the direct effect 

212 



Three Schools of Evolutionists 

of environment and Lamarck's principle of the in- 
direct effect of environment require the beHef that 
characters acquired during the Hfe of the individ- 
ual are capable of being inherited. The question 
of the truth of this assumption will be considered 
presently. 

In regard to the validity of the factors of evolution 
assumed by Saint Hilaire and Lamarck, evolutionists 
since Darwin have been divided somewhat definitely 
into three schools. Darwin himself, though maintain- 
ing that his own principle of natural selection was by 
far the most important factor in the evolution of new 
species, believed in the validity of both the direct and 
the indirect effects of environment, as assumed by 
Saint Hilaire and Lamarck; and those evolutionists 
who in this respect adhere to Darwin's views may rea- 
sonably call themselves Darwinians. From this posi- 
tion of Darwin a departure has been made in two 
different directions. The Neo-Lamarckian school be- 
lieve the direct, and especially the indirect, effect of 
the environment to be very much more important than 
Darwin supposed, while they relegate natural selection 
to a comparatively subordinate position among the 
agencies of evolution. In their thought, natural selec- 
tion preserves the fittest, but the origin of the fittest 
is to be found in the operation of the Lamarckian fac- 
tors. On the other hand, the Ultra-Darwinian, Neo- 
Darwinian, or Weismannian, school utterly repudiate 
both the direct and the indirect effect of environment, 
holding that variation is absolutely indeterminate/ and 

213 



The Origin of Species 

that natural selection is the sole agency in evolution.* 
I believe that the departure in each of these opposite 
directions from the position of Darwin is in the direc- 
tion of error. I believe that Darwin was right both in 
maintaining the paramount importance of natural se- 
lection, and in conceding the validity, within limits, 
of the factors of evolution asserted by Saint Hilaire 
and Lamarck. 

As has been remarked, the evolutionary theories of 
Saint Hilaire and Lamarck involve as an essential con- 
dition the inheritance of characters acquired during 
the lifetime of the individual. Unless that postulate is 
granted, the effect of the environment, direct or indi- 
rect, ceases with the individual life, and no tendency 
to determinate variation can arise therefrom. Until 
recently it has generally been taken for granted, alike 
by scientists and by the general public, that acquired 
characters are capable, at least in some degree, of being 
inherited. But, when the question comes to be se- 
riously considered, it becomes obvious that the evidence 
of such inheritance is far less conclusive than has gen- 
erally been supposed. 

Perhaps the strongest evidence of the inheritance of 
acquired variations is seen in the hereditary instincts 
of domestic animals. The condition of tameness ap- 
pears to be hereditary. The offspring of our domestic 
animals appear to have inherited that condition of the 

* Cope, Origin of the Fittest^ and Weismann, Essays upon Heredity and 
Kindred Biological Problems^ may be referred to as representative of the ex- 
treme views. For a convenient summary of the various recent discussions on 
evolution, see Conn, Method of Evolution. 

214 



Inheritance of Acquired Characters 

nervous system which in their ancestors was the result 
of habits of association with man. The more specific 
instincts developed in certain breeds of domestic ani- 
mals afford an indication in the same direction. It has 
been repeatedly observed that young pointers of pure 
blood are apt to assume the characteristic attitude of 
pointing when first taken into the field. It is difBcult 
to understand the fact except on the supposition that 
a habit which was originally the result of training 
has produced in the ancestors of these dogs a heritable 
modification of the nervous system by which the ac- 
quired habit has become a hereditary instinct. 

It seems probable also that some of the instincts of 
wild animals may best be explained in like manner, as 
held by Darwin, Romanes, and others, by the supposi- 
tion of the inheritance of habits formed primarily by 
intelligent response to the conditions of the environ- 
ment. The phrase, '^lapsed intelligence," first used 
by Lewes, ''^ felicitously expresses the psychological 
condition involved in such "inherited habits." There 
are, however, some instincts for which this explanation 
is certainly inadmissible. The origin of instincts is 
confessedly a difficult problem; and, while the facts 
afford some evidence in favor of the inheritance of 
acquired characters, the evidence is certainly not 
conclusive.f 

There are multitudes of supposed instances of in- 

* Problems of Life and Mind. 

tOn the evolution of instincts, see Darwin, Ori^itt of Species, ch. vii in the 
earlier editions, ch. viii in the later editions ; Romanes, Mental Evolution in 
Animals; lli.orga.n^ Animal Life and Intelligence; Morgan, Habit and Instinct . 

215 



The Origin of Species 

heritance of acquired characters in human life, which, 
when examined, are found to be very uncertain. It is 
a famihar fact that there are famiHes of drunkards, 
famihes of criminals, families of musicians, families of 
statesmen, families of scientists. In all these cases it 
is often hastily assumed that the habits of life of the 
parent produce modifications of the nervous system 
which are inherited. The inference, however, is seen 
to be uncertain for two reasons. In the first place, 
granted that the character of the offspring in these 
cases has been largely controlled by heredity, it is alto- 
gether uncertain whether the child inherits the effects 
of the parent's habits, or inherits only the congenital 
tendencies which led the parent into the formation of 
those habits. In the case of hereditary drunkenness, it 
can never be decided whether the child inherits a con- 
dition which is the result of the father's habit of drunk- 
enness, or inherits only that nervous weakness or 
abnormality which existed congenitally in the father 
and which made him an easy prey to temptation. The 
other element of uncertainty, in all these cases of ap- 
parent inheritance of marked peculiarities in the human 
species, lies in the impossibility of distinguishing how 
much of the character of the offspring is due to hered- 
ity and how much to environment. In the vast ma- 
jority of cases, the parents of a child have the largest 
share in the shaping of his environment. They are 
his first and chief teachers In that process of conscious 
and unconscious education by which his life and char- 
acter are largely formed. Their example is the one 

2x6 



Weismann's Theory of Heredity 

wliich he naturally follows, even when the following 
of their example is not sedulously inculcated as a duty. 
The only cases in which it is practicable to discriminate 
between the effects of heredity and those of environ- 
ment, are the exceptional cases of orphans and others 
who are reared under the dominant influence of other 
persons than their parents. The success which has 
been attained in many orphan asylums and similar in- 
stitutions, in developing into very respectable men and 
\vomen children whose ancestry was the worst possible, 
is eminently suggestive of the idea that, in general, 
environment is a weightier factor than heredity in 
shaping the lives and characters of human beings. 

In recent years Weismann and his followers have 
denied on theoretical grounds the possibility of the in- 
heritance of acquired characters in any degree what- 
ever.* According to Weismann's theory of heredity, 
there is in each individual organism a complete physio- 
logical isolation of the portion of the body whose func- 
tion is to reproduce the species from the portion of the 
body w^hich carries on the activities of the life of the 
individual. In every ovum there is a certain portion 
of material which is destined to develop into the va- 
rious organs by which the life of the individual is to 
be maintained and its activities to be exercised. That 
portion of the substance of the egg is called the soma- 
toplasm. Another portion of the substance of the 
ovum is destined to have no share in the activities of 

* Weismann, Essays upon Heredity. Weismann's views are trenchantly 
criticized by Romanes, Examinatioii of Weisniannism ; also Darwin and 
After Darwin^ vol. ii. 

217 



The Origin of Species 

the life of the individual, but is simply stored up for 
the production of future generations. It is, in other 
words, to constitute the reproductive products. That 
portion of the ovum is called the germ-plasm. Accord- 
ing to Weismann's theory, through all the life of the 
individual, the somatoplasm and the germ-plasm are 
so completely independent of each other that the 
changes wrought in the somatoplasm by the direct and 
indirect effects of the environment can have no tend- 
ency to induce corresponding changes in the germ- 
plasm, and therefore cannot reproduce themselves in 
the offspring. According to this theory of inheritance, 
the offspring can inherit only what was congenital in 
the parent, for only the congenital characters of the 
parent can find expression in the germ-plasm. It is 
impossible here to enter at length into the discussion of 
Weismann's theory. Suffice it to say that it does not 
seem probable that there can be that complete physio- 
logical isolation of somatoplasm and germ-plasm which 
Weismann's theory assumes. It is indeed true that in 
most animals the reproductive organs and products are 
anatomically differentiated from the rest of the body 
at a pretty early stage in embryonic life. In plants, 
however, the case is very different. The reproductive 
organs and products are usually not anatomically dif- 
ferentiated until a relatively late period in the life of 
the organism. But even in animals, in which the re- 
productive products are very early differentiated an- 
atomically, it seems highly improbable that they can 
be so completely isolated physiologically from the rest 

2l8 



Botanical Experiments 

of the organism in which they live, and by which they 
are nourished, as not to be affected in any definite way 
by the modifications which that organism experiences. 
It appears, on the whole, probable that acquired 
variations are capable in some degree of being inher- 
ited, though probably in far less degree than Saint 
Hilaire and Lamarck supposed, and in less degree even 
than Darwin conceded. The line of investigation that 
seems most likely, in the near future, to yield some- 
what definite information in regard to the degree in 
which acquired variations are capable of being inher- 
ited, is the cultivation of plants under an environment 
different from the ordinary environment of the species. 
In many respects experiments on plants are more easily 
carried out than experiments on animals. It is well 
known that many plants, when cultivated in an envi- 
ronment very different from that of the parents (as, 
for instance, when plants which normally grow in the 
interior of a continent are cultivated on the seashore), 
exhibit strongly marked peculiarities in foliage and in 
other respects. If acquired characters are capable in 
any degree of being inherited, it ought to follow that, 
when the plants have been exposed for a number of 
years to the changed environment, their seeds, if 
planted in the normal environment of the species, 
would produce plants which would exhibit in some 
degree the characters which their parents had ac- 
quired in the abnormal environment. It would seem 
that a series of experiments of this sort, involving a 
considerable number of species of plants, and continued 

219 



The Origin of Species 

for some considerable term of years, might yield some- 
v/hat definite results in regard to the degree in which 
acquired variations are inherited. 

It must be noticed that an element of uncertainty 
has been shown to exist in all the supposed evidences 
of inheritance of acquired variations, by reason of the 
principle not very felicitously named ''organic selec- 
tion," whose discovery has been independently an- 
nounced by Professor J. M. Baldwin,* of Princeton, 
Professor Henry F. Osborn, of Columbia University, 
and Professor C. Lloyd Morgan, of Bristol, England. 
Let us suppose that some geographical movement or 
other change has thrown the character of a species 
out of harmony with its environment. Those individ- 
uals of the species whose physical or psychical consti- 
tution is sufficiently plastic, will respond to the change 
in environment by changes directly effected in the or- 
ganism, or by changes of habit and consequent changes 
in the organism. In other words, the plastic individuals 
will experience adaptive modifications in one or both 
of the methods asserted respectively by Saint Hilaire 
and Lamarck. Natural selection will then operate to 
preserve the individuals thus adaptively modified, and 
to destroy the unmodified individuals. These modifi- 
cations, indeed, according to the Weismannian doc- 
trine, can be in no degree inherited. Nevertheless, in 
the second generation, and in every subsequent genera- 

* Baldwin, Development and Evolutioft. In this work Professor Baldwin's 
original papers are republished ; and. in the Appendix, copious extracts are 
given from the writings of Professors Osborn and Morgan and others who have 
treated the subject of organic selection, 

220 



Organic Selection 

tion under the new environment, the same adaptive 
modifications will be produced in the individuals suffi- 
ciently plastic, and in each generation natural selection 
will tend to preserve the individuals thus modified. On 
the supposition that congenital variations are abso- 
lutely indeterminate, it may be expected that in process 
of time there will appear congenital variations in the 
same direction as the adaptive modifications. Then, and 
not till then, according to the Weismannians, can the 
new characters be transmitted by inheritance. But in 
the meantime the race will have been preserved from 
extinction, under the changed environment, by adaptive 
modifications effected in each generation. It thus ap- 
pears that the persistence, for an indefinite series of 
generations, of characters such as are produced in the 
individual by the direct or indirect action of the en- 
vironment, is not conclusive proof of the inheritance of 
acquired modifications. There seems no doubt that 
the principle of organic selection is sound, though there 
is much uncertainty in regard to the importance of its 
effects. It has been claimed by Professors Baldwin 
and Morgan to be especially valuable in accounting 
for the development of instincts. The theory of or- 
ganic selection has been spoken of as a compromise be- 
tween the Neo-Lamarckian and the Ultra-Darwinian 
school. A compromise in some sense it certainly is, 
but a compromise in which the Neo-Lamarckians sur- 
render far more than their adversaries. The concep- 
tion of evolution from the standpoint of organic selec- 
tion is superficially Lamarckian but fundamentally 

221 



The Origin of Species 

Darwinian. It is Lamarckian in asserting the impor- 
tance of adaptive modifications effected by the action 
of the environment in the hfe of the individual, and 
especially in asserting the importance of the conscious 
activity of the individual; but it is essentially Dar- 
winian or Weismannian in making the evolution of 
new species depend upon the preservation of indeter- 
minate variations by natural selection. 

Laying aside for the present the supposition of de- 
terminate variation, we may consider the question 
whether natural selection would be adequate to develop 
a new species by means of purely indeterminate varia- 
tions. Some strong objections have been alleged to the 
adequacy of natural selection in the absence of deter- 
minate variation.* 

A plausible objection to the adequacy of natural se- 
lection is found in the fact that in many cases specific 
characters give their possessors no obvious advantage 
in the struggle for life. It is, indeed, perfectly intelli- 
gible that the white fur of the polar bear gives the 
creature a far better chance of survival in its environ- 
ment than it would have if it were as dark as its con- 
gener, the black bear. But in multitudes of cases it is 
impossible to discover any utility in the particular color 
pattern and other details of ornamentation which char- 
acterize a particular species. On the other hand it may 
be answered, so imperfect is our knowledge of the 
delicate adjustments of organic nature, that he would 
be a rash man who should deny the possibility of some 

^ Mivart, Genesis of Species. 
222 



Utility of Specific Characters 

real utility in characters apparently so trivial as a 
white bar on a bird's wing or a pair of white feathers 
in its tail, and still more rash would he be who should 
deny the possibility that such characters might be cor- 
related with other characters of great utility. But it 
must be confessed that the appeal to ignorance, though 
sometimes reasonable and necessary, is not a very satis- 
factory argument. In this connection it is proper to 
remark that there has been a good deal of superfluous 
discussion on the question what degree of utility is 
necessary to give to a character ''selective value." The 
slightest degree of utility gives selective value to a 
character. Natural selection does not require a varia- 
tion of such critical importance as to preserve the lives 
of its possessors in a general massacre of the re- 
mainder of the species. It is enough that a variation 
should enable its possessors to attain a slightly greater 
average longevity, and to leave a slightly greater aver- 
age number of offspring. Any character that in- 
creases, however slightly, the comfort of its possessors, 
must improve their general tone of health and vigor, 
and so give them a greater average longevity. An 
extra inch in the length of the tail of a mammal which 
uses its tail as a fly-brush, may have selective value.* 

A similar, and perhaps a more cogent, argument 
against the adequacy of natural selection may be stated 
in the proposition that incipient stages of organs would 
not as a rule be useful in any appreciable degree, even 
though the perfect organ might be of great utility, and 

* Conn, The Method of Evolution^ p. 85. 
223 



The Origin of Species 

that the incipient stages would therefore be incapable 
of being preserved by means of natural selection. The 
fins of fishes must have been in their primitive condi- 
tion simply very slight folds of skin, and it has been 
argued that such slight folds of skin would be of no 
use as fins or for any other purpose, and that therefore 
there would be no reason why natural selection should 
preserve them. I cannot help thinking that Darwin 
assumed an unnecessary burden in practically limiting 
himself to the supposition of minute variations. It is 
undoubtedly true that the majority of variations are 
insignificant, but nevertheless it is a matter of common 
experience that from time to time very marked varia- 
tions do appear. Offspring are occasionally produced 
which differ very widely indeed from their parents. 
Two of the most remarkable instances of new 
breeds among domestic animals developed in recent 
times have originated from strongly marked variations 
of this sort. One of these cases is that of the so-called 
ancon, or otter, sheep, a breed formerly common in 
New England, though more recently displaced by 
breeds imported from Europe. The otter sheep orig- 
inated in 1 79 1 from a single lamb which attracted the 
attention of its owner by the shortness of its legs. The 
enterprising farmer conceived the idea that a short- 
legged breed of sheep would be desirable, since they 
would be less likely to jump fences than the longer- 
legged race. He accordingly reared the strange lamb 
to maturity, and bred from that individual with such 
success as to start a well characterized breed of short- 

224 



Variations not always Minute 

legged sheep. The black-shouldered variety of pea- 
cocks is known to have originated in a similar way, by 
the sudden appearance of a number of birds whose 
plumage departed very widely from the parental type. 
There seems to be no reason why such variations may 
not occasionally take place in a state of nature, and 
why they may not be of some significance in the process 
of evolution of new species.* 

Another objection to the adequacy of natural selec- 
tion is found in the fact that the utility of a specific 
character often depends upon the mutual adaptation of 
characters of various organs and tissues. A deer's 
antlers may be useful; but, if the antlers were devel- 
oped without the development of the muscles and bones 
of the neck and shoulders in such wise as to enable the 
creature to wield the antlers, they would be not only 
useless but pernicious. f This objection has weight 
in regard to variations of organs of exquisite com- 
plexity, as the eyes of vertebrates or cephalopods. The 
objection finds at least a partial answer in the principle 
Vv'hich Weismann has called ''intra-selection."{ By this 
word he denotes a certain plasticity of the organism, 
whereby, in the development of the individual, various 
organs and tissues grow in mutual correlation. If a 
deer were produced with a congenital variation in the 
direction of a tendency to heavier antlers, the weight 
of the antlers would cause a stronger development of 

* See Bateson, Materials for the Study of Variation. 
t Spencer, Principles of Biology., vol. i, p. 514. 

\ Romanes Lecture, The Effect of External Influences on Development.^ 
1894, pp. II, 18. 

225 



The Origin of Species 

fhe muscles of the neck, and that in turn would induce 
modifications in the bones to which the muscles were 
attached. According to this view, a congenital and 
heritable variation in one organ may be rendered use- 
ful by correlated modifications in other organs, which, 
though not inherited, are independently developed in 
each individual. There is an obvious analogy between 
Weismann's doctrine of intra-selection and the theory 
of organic selection already discussed.* Each of the 
two conceptions is in some sense a mediation between 
the Lamarckian and the Darwinian conception of 
evolution. 

A fourth objection to the sufficiency of natural se- 
lection is that any variation, however desirable, is not 
likely to be preserved and made the starting point for 
the development of a new species unless it occurs simul- 
taneously in a considerable number of individuals.f 
Suppose that in some species the relation between the 
rate of reproduction and the rate of mortality is such 
that, on the average, one in every thousand of the 
organisms hatched from the egg survives to maturity. 
Suppose an individual is produced which has varied 
in a manner so desirable as to give it twice as good a 
chance of surviving in the struggle for life as the aver- 
age of the individuals of the species. It will still, as 
has been argued, have only one chance in five hundred 
of surviving to maturity. If a single individual or 
a few individuals possessing some desirable variation 
should survive to maturity, it is further claimed that 

* Page 220. t North British Review^ June, 1867. 

226 



Isolation 

the desirable variation would nevertheless disappear 
in the course of a few generations by promiscuous 
crossing with the vast multitude of individuals of the 
species which do not possess the variation in question. 
The conclusion suggested by this line of reasoning is 
obviously that, in order that a variation may be pre- 
served by natural selection and made the basis of the 
evolution of a new species, it must appear simulta- 
neously in a considerable number of individuals. Apart 
from merely quantitative variations in the develop- 
ment of an organ or character which has already been 
acquired, it seems improbable that like variations will 
appear simultaneously in indi\iduals, unless there be 
some cause of determinate variation. 

Without denying that this argument possesses great 
force (as was early acknowledged by Darwin him- 
self),''' it may be noticed that in many cases the action 
of natural selection may be greatly assisted, as has been 
pointed out by Romanes and Gulick,f by the isolation 
of the individuals that have varied in any particular 
direction, and the consequent prevention of their cross- 
ing with other individuals of the species. There may 
be, in fact, various kinds of isolation. There may be 
geographical isolation, as when a small colony of the 
individuals of a species is established on an island, the 
home of the majority of the species being on an adja- 
cent continent. As the average character of the small 
colony on the Island will practically never be exactly 

* Origin of Species, 5th (American) edition, p. 93. 
t Romanes, DarzinU and After Darwin^ vol. iii. 

227 



The Origin of Species 

identical with the average character of the main body 
of the species, the insular colony will start on its his- 
tory in a different condition from that of the main 
body of the species. In most cases also its environ- 
ment will be more or less different from that of 
the continental portion of the species. Thus we can 
readily understand the evolution of peculiar species in 
insular situations as a result of geographical isolation. 
But there may be other forms of isolation where geo- 
graphical isolation does not exist. There may be a 
topographical isolation within the same continuous 
area. If certain individuals of a species vary in such 
a way that they choose a different station, that differ- 
ence of station may so isolate them from the mass of 
the species as in great degree to prevent their crossing. 
If, for instance, certain individuals of a species, in 
consequence of some variation, tend to live on higher 
ground or on lower ground, in places more dry or in 
places more damp than the stations frequented by the 
mass of the species, there will be an obvious tendency 
for the individuals that share the variation to breed 
with each other, while their crossing with other indi- 
viduals not possessing the variation in question will 
be more or less effectively prevented. There may be, 
again, physiological isolation, where there is no local 
isolation, either geographical or topographical. If cer- 
tain individuals in a species of flowering plant vary in 
such wise as to blossom a little earlier or a little later 
than the other members of the species, that difference 
in the time of flowering will operate to prevent crosses 

228 



Sterility of Hybrids 

between individuals which do possess and individuals 
which do not possess the variation in question. In the 
case of the higher animals, the act of pairing is gov- 
erned in large degree by psychological conditions ; and, 
if certain individuals vary in any way that renders 
them less attractive to the other individuals of the spe- 
cies, or if certain individuals develop a variation cor- 
related with some peculiarity of instinct which makes 
the other members of the species less attractive to 
them, the result will be that the two kinds of indi- 
viduals within the limits of the same species will be 
more or less effectively prevented from crossing. 

There is one very broad fact in natural history which 
seems to indicate that physiological isolation has had 
much to do with the development of species. In one 
respect species existing in nature differ widely from 
breeds which have been produced in domestication. In 
the case of distinct species it is certainly the general 
rule that the blending of two species is resisted by a 
greater or less degree of sterility. In the majority of 
cases an attempted cross between individuals of two 
species, whether animal or vegetable, results in the 
production of no offspring whatever. In some cases, 
offspring is produced, as in the well-known case of the 
mule, which is the result of a cross between two nearly 
allied species, the horse and the ass. But, in the cases 
in which a hybrid offspring is produced, it is usually 
found that the hybrids are themselves incapable of pro- 
ducing offspring. Even in the cases in which a second 
generation has been produced, there appears, in gen- 

229 



The Origin of Species 

eral, an obvious tendency for the hybrid race to die 
out by reason of increasing steriHty in successive gen- 
erations. While there is no sufficient evidence to war- 
rant the assertion of a universal sterility of hybrids, 
it is certainly the general law that the crossing of dis- 
tinct species is opposed by a condition of sterility 
greater or less in degree. On the other hand, there 
appears to be no tendency to sterility in the case of the 
crossing of different breeds of domestic animals, even 
though the structural differences between those breeds 
may be greater than exist between many wild species. 
Different breeds of pigeons differ from each other in 
external aspect and in osteological and other anatom- 
ical characters far more than many closely allied spe- 
cies. And yet there is not known to be any tendency 
to sterility in the crossing of the most widely different 
breeds. This difference between wild species and do- 
mestic breeds has often been alleged as an objection 
to the theory of evolution in general, since it has been 
claimed to show that a species must be due to some 
cause radically distinct from the occasional variations, 
accumulated and intensified by artificial selection, to 
which breeds of domestic animals owe their origin. It 
is probable that the true interpretation of the mutual 
sterility of species is found in the views of Romanes 
and Gulick. If a variation, useful in itself, and there- 
fore fitted to constitute the basis of a new species under 
the operation of natural selection, is correlated with 
such variation in the reproductive organs as renders 
those individuals in greater or less degree incapable 

230 



Physiological Selection 

of union with other individuals of the species, then 
that variation will not be in danger of disappearing 
by successive dilution as the result of promiscuous 
crossing with individuals not possessing the variation 
in question. On the other hand, a useful variation not 
thus correlated with changes in the reproductive sys- 
tem leading to sterility in crossing, will be liable to 
disappear by promiscuous crossing before it can be 
fixed by natural selection. According to these views, 
the characters which have been seized upon by natural 
selection, and have been made the basis for the evolu- 
tion of new species, have been precisely those characters 
which were correlated with variations in the reproduc- 
tive system rendering their possessors in greater or less 
degree incapable of crossing with other individuals of 
the species. This principle of ^'physiological selection" 
seems to offer an intelligible explanation of the preva- 
lent fact of mutual sterility between individuals of 
different species, and it is obvious that the action of nat- 
ural selection must be greatly aided by such physiolog- 
ical isolation. The supposition which is at the basis of 
this doctrine, namely, that very slight variations in the 
general structure may be correlated with such modifi- 
cations of the reproductive system as will involve the 
result of mutual sterility, is in itself altogether prob- 
able. It is well known that the reproductive system is 
more susceptible than any other part of the organiza- 
tion to modifications dependent upon slight changes in 
the environment and mode of life. Very slight changes 
often suffice to render individuals altogether incapable 

2^1 



The Origin of Species 

of reproduction, and it is easy to believe that very 
slight differences in the general organization of differ- 
ent individuals of a species may be correlated with such 
differences in the reproductive system as will involve a 
greater or less degree of mutual sterility. 

A fifth objection to the adequacy of natural selec- 
tion, in the absence of determinate variation, is found 
in the present views in regard to the length of geolog- 
ical time. Darwin was in geology a disciple of Lyell, 
the great leader of the uniformitarian school. As we 
have already seen,* that school of geologists regarded 
all geological changes as slow, and demanded well- 
nigh an eternity for the history of the earth. The new 
school of geology, which has displaced alike the old 
uniformitarianism and the older catastrophism, recog- 
nizes that, while some geological changes are slow, 
others are rapid. The question of the age of the earth 
has been studied by physicists as well as by geologists ; 
and, in general, the physicists who have reasoned on 
the basis of thermodynamic laws in regard to the proc- 
ess of the cooling of the globe have reached the result 
that the age of the earth must be very much less than 
was supposed by Lyell and the uniformitarian geolo- 
gists. While the geologists of to-day by no means 
implicitly accept the definite numerical statements in 
regard to the age of the earth which have been offered 
by some eminent physicists, it is undoubtedly true that 
geological thought has been largely influenced by the 
views of physicists. Charles Darwin, who was prima- 

* Page 157. 
232 



Length of Geological Time 

rily a biologist, secondarily a geologist, estimated the 
time that has elapsed since the condensation of the 
ocean upon the cooling surface of the globe as 
200,000,000 years. George Darwin, who is prima- 
rily a physicist, secondarily a geologist, estimates the 
age of the earth since its molten condition as only 
57,000,000 years. The difference of opinion between 
father and son is somewhat representative of the dif- 
ference between tw^o generations of geologists. It is 
not unlikely that the latter estimate is too small, and 
that the pendulum must oscillate again and again be- 
fore it comes to rest. Now it is obvious that the evolu- 
tion of the vast multitude of sp'^cies that have existed, 
solely by the agency of natural selection acting upon 
utterly indeterminate variations, must have been a slow 
process. It is indeed an important and valuable sug- 
gestion in this connection, that forms of life wxre much 
more plastic in earlier than in later geological time.* 
When life was just emerging from the primitive con- 
dition of unicellular simplicity, the differentiation of 
new sub-kingdoms may have been accomplished more 
rapidly than the evolution of new species at a later 
date. As the generations multiply, the force of hered- 
ity is strengthened. The centripetal force increases, 
the centrifugal force decreases. But, however much of 
weight may be given to this consideration, the conclu- 
sion remains that, in the absence of determinate varia- 

* This idea was set forth by Professor H. W. Conn, of Wesleyan University, 
in an article published in the American Naturalist in 1886 See Conn, The 
Living World, p. 178. 7\dani Sedgwick, in his address before the Biological 
Section of the British Association in 1899, formulated the doctrine in the 
striking phrase, " The Evolution of Heredity." See Nature^ vol. Ix, p. 509. 



The Origin of Species 

tion, evolution must have required an immense amount 
of time. 

While our knowledge is altogether inadequate to en- 
able us to give any definite estimate of the time neces- 
sary for such evolution, one cannot avoid feeling at 
least a strong suspicion that such a process of evolution 
would be too slow to achieve the result in the moderate 
duration of a few tens of millions of years, to which 
we seem now to be restricted. If we can assume that 
causes of determinate variation exist, it is obvious that 
the process of evolution may have gone on much more 
rapidly. 

It seems, on the whole, probable, that determinate 
variation has occurred. In all probability acquired 
variations are in some degree inherited ; and, if this be 
true, the direct influence of environment, as assumed 
by Saint Hilaire, and the indirect influence of environ- 
ment, as assumed by Lamarck, must both be recog- 
nized as true causes of determinate variation. And, 
in the density of our ignorance in regard to the causes 
alike of heredity and of variation, we certainly cannot 
deny the possibility that determinate variation may take 
place as the result of causes to us unknown. 

A word should be said in regard to another agency 
in evolution, which is far less important indeed than 
natural selection, but which has probably had some 
effect. I refer to the principle which Darwin calls 
''sexual selection."* In order that a variation pos- 
sessed by certain individuals should be preserved and 

* Darwin, The Descent of Man ^ and Selection in relation to Sex, 
234 



Sexual Selection 

intensified, it is not necessary that the individuals which 
do not possess that variation should be exterminated. 
It is sufficient that they should be prevented from 
propagating. If a breeder of domestic animals desires 
to develop any particular quality in his stock, he does 
it, as we have seen, by selective breeding. He breeds 
from those individuals in his herd which already pos- 
sess the desired character in the highest degree. But 
it is not necessary that he should slaughter all the rest 
of his herd. It is sufficient that he should shut them 
up, and prevent them from breeding. So it may be 
assumed that, in a state of nature, a selection of certain 
individuals to propagate would be as real an evolu- 
tionary force as a selection of certain individuals to 
survive. It is a common belief with those who have 
never studied the life of animals, that, in a state of 
nature, the great majority of adult individuals pair and 
leave offspring. Darwin has shown, however, that 
there is much reason to believe this popular impression 
to be erroneous. He has shown that it is probable that 
large numbers of individuals that survive to maturity 
are prevented from propagating. In many species, the 
possession of the females is a matter that is decided by 
conflict among the males, and fierce duels are fought 
between rivals. In many species, peculiar weapons are 
developed by the males for use in these combats ; and 
in some cases the relation of these weapons to the proc- 
ess of reproduction is the more obvious by reason of 
the fact that the weapons are borne only in the breed- 
ing season. In most species of deer, the antlers are 

235 



The Origin of Species 

developed only in the male, and are shed periodically, 
being annually renewed at the breeding season. So it 
is, in most species of salmon, with the hooked jaw, 
which constitutes a very curious weapon in the male. 
In other species, the possession of the females is se- 
cured by a sort of courtship. Every one has observed, 
in the case of many of our common birds, the males 
endeavoring to attract the attention of the females by 
attitudes and actions adapted to display in the most at- 
tractive way the beauty of their plumage. In some 
cases the charm of plumage and of attitude is supple- 
mented by melody of voice. It seems probable that 
Darwin is right in attributing to sexual selection the 
development of those weapons of ofifense and defense 
which are borne only by males, and the brilliant plu- 
mage which is so frequent a characteristic of male 
birds. The. dull and inconspicuous colors often worn 
by female birds of those species in which the males are 
brilliantly colored, are doubtless to be understood as 
protective colors, rendering the bird less conspicuous 
w^hile sitting upon her eggs. 

It seems certain that the principle of sexual selec- 
tion is an agency of considerable importance in pre- 
serving from degeneration the character of the human 
species. It is obvious that marked physical defects, 
diseases that are repulsive, contagious, or liable to be 
inherited, disgraceful immorality, and general shift- 
lessness and forcelessness such as to incapacitate one 
for self-support, render persons undesirable as part- 
ners in marriage. It is an important consideration, as 

236 



Cessation of Natural Selection in Man 

regards the future of the human race, that the effect 
of Christian civiHzation is substantially to abolish the 
action of natural selection between individuals of the 
race. In the pre-human and in the earlier human 
stages of our ancestry, natural selection was unques- 
tionably a most important force. The weak and puny 
were left to starve, or were actively destroyed. And, 
when civilization had advanced so far that intentional 
destruction of offspring was discountenanced, the lack 
of medical skill and sanitary science generally allowed 
weak and puny children to fall early victims to disease. 
While thus those individuals that were physically in- 
ferior were exterminated, Draconian codes of justice 
destroyed those individuals whose moral character was 
not up to the standard required by the moral sense of 
the tribe. It is obvious, however, that this action of 
natural selection has practically ceased in the life of 
civilized man. Public sanitation and medical skill pre- 
serve to maturity those whose physical weaknesses or 
defects render them most unfit to survive, and the 
milder sentiment of modern times has almost abol- 
ished the death penalty even in the case of atrocious 
criminals. The operation of natural selection con- 
tinues a little longer in the relations of different na- 
tions or tribes than in the relations of individuals of 
the same nation or tribe. The disappearance of the 
American Indians from most of the territory of the 
United States has been an exhibition of the effect of 
a pretty relentless natural selection. But, as human 
life becomes more completely dominated by that senti- 

237 



The Origin of Life 

ment of universal brotherhood which characterizes a 
Christian civiHzation, it is evident that the operation 
of natural selection within the human race must entirely 
cease. Society must demand for its own protection, 
when the safeguard of natural selection is lost, that 
sexual selection be exercised more strictly and strenu- 
ously than in former times. The marriage of persons 
in any marked degree physically abnormal or defective 
must be interdicted by public opinion, supplemented, if 
necessary, by legislation; and the propagation of a 
criminal class must be checked by the adoption of the 
principle of the indefinite sentence even for petty 
crimes. The principle of the indefinite sentence has 
been advocated by many of the most enlightened soci- 
ologists of our time on entirely different grounds, but 
it is evident that their arguments find strong reinforce- 
ment in biological science. Not only the negative, but 
also the positive, application of the principle of sexual 
selection is important for the maintenance and advance- 
ment of the character of the race. The social and eco- 
nomic conditions that tend to abstinence from mar- 
riage, late marriages, and childless marriages on the 
part of the better classes of the population, must be 
regarded with grave anxiety.* 

The Origin of Life 

From the question of the origin of particular species 
w^e pass to the consideration of the question of the 
origin of life itself, for obviously the doctrine of bio- 

* Pearson, Grammar of Science^ 2d edition, p. 466. 

238 



Spontaneous Generation 

logical evolution is not complete unless it can include 
in its scope the origin of the earliest organisms, which 
must be supposed to have been the ancestors of all 
subsequent life. If the doctrine of evolution in as- 
tronomy and geology gives us a continuous develop- 
ment of the inorganic world from the initial condition 
of a nebula to the dawn of life, and if the doctrine of 
evolution in biology gives us a continuous development 
of the organic world from the dawn of life to the 
flora and fauna of to-day, there is still required for 
the completion of the idea of the unity of nature the 
recognition of a natural process of evolution whereby 
non-living matter becomes living. 

At the time when the publication of Darwin's "Or- 
igin of Species" opened the modern phase of the dis- 
cussion of biological evolution, the question of the 
spontaneous generation of certain organisms was a sub- 
ject of earnest investigation and bitter controversy; 
and it was then clearly recognized that a theory of 
the evolution of life from non-living matter was re- 
quired for the completion of the general doctrine of 
evolution. 

It is a curious fact that, though in general the preju- 
dices of ignorance have been adverse to evolutionary 
ideas, those prejudices have been in favor of sponta- 
neous generation. There are two reasons for the 
prevalence of a crude and unintelligent belief in spon- 
taneous generation. One of these is the fact that the 
larval forms of many animals are so very unlike the 
adult forms that the relationship between the two may 

239 



The Origin of Life 

long remain unsuspected. When a piece of putrefying 
meat is seen to be swarming with maggots, of course 
people ignorant of zoology do not suspect that the mag- 
gots are young flies. They look so entirely different 
from flies that their relationship is easily overlooked. 
The other reason for a popular belief in spontaneous 
generation is the fact that in many cases organisms ap- 
pear in situations where it seems very difficult to ac- 
count for their presence unless they can be supposed to 
have been spontaneously generated. Insect larvae are 
found in fruits that appear externally sound, the slight 
wound where the egg of the creature was introduced 
having been so completely healed as to be unrecogni- 
zable. Parasitic organisms are found in animals, not 
merely in the alimentary canal, where it is compara- 
tively easy to understand the method of their introduc- 
tion, but enveloped in the tissues of various organs, as 
the lung, the heart, the brain, or the eye. In some of 
those cases the difficulty of accounting for the presence 
of the parasites is so great that it is no wonder that 
people have been led to believe that the organisms are 
spontaneously generated in the situations in which they 
are found. 

Indeed, so strongly was the unscientific mind in for- 
mer ages possessed by the idea of the spontaneous 
generation of new life out of the decay of old life that 
even the normal processes of vegetable reproduction 
were misinterpreted as cases of spontaneous genera- 
tion. It was, for instance, the common belief that a 
seed buried in the ground died, and from its death was 

240 



Redi's Experiments 

evolved the new life of the growing plant. In one of 
the most touching and beautiful of all the discourses 
of Jesus, we find a figurative passage based upon this 
popular misinterpretation of the facts regarding the 
germination of seeds: — "Except a corn of wheat fall 
into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but, if it 
die, it bringeth forth much fruit."* Of course we are 
in no wise disturbed by the recognition of the scientific 
error involved in this figure. It was not the mission of 
Jesus to lecture on vegetable physiology. But the pas- 
sage strikingly illustrates the prevalence of the popular 
belief in the spontaneous generation of new life out of 
the decay of old life. 

But, however tempting might be the belief in spon- 
taneous generation, as affording an easy explanation 
of the presence of organisms in situations where it 
was difficult otherwise to account for them, such a 
belief could not persist in the face of scientific investi- 
gation. The very beginning of scientific investigation 
of the subject at once disposed of many of the supposed 
cases of spontaneous generation. f The first serious at- 
tempt at the investigation of supposed cases of sponta- 
neous generation was made by an Italian named Redi, 
whose results were published in 1668. He investigated 
the origin of the maggots which commonly appear in 
putrefying meat. He tried the very simple experiment 
of putting a piece of meat in a jar and tying a sheet of 

* John, xii, 24. 

t An admirably clear and interesting history of the investigations result- 
ing in the disproof of spontaneous generation is given in Huxley's address 
on Biogenesis and Abiogenesis, included in his Discotirses Biological and 
Geological. 

241 



The Origin of Life 

gauze over the mouth of the jar. Plenty of flies buzzed 
around the jar, but the meshes of the gauze were too 
fine for them to get through ; so the flies could not get 
to the meat, and of course no maggots appeared in the 
meat. But it was observed that some of the flies laid 
eggs on the gauze, and the development of those eggs 
was watched. It was found, of course, that in due 
season maggots were hatched from the eggs, and so 
the spontaneous generation of maggots was disposed 
of at once and forever. 

While it was thus easily proved in the case of com- 
paratively large and conspicuous animals that they 
originated by normal processes of reproduction, and 
not by spontaneous generation, the proof of such a 
conclusion was obviously less easy in the case of or- 
ganisms of extreme minuteness. Two hundred years 
after Redi's time, when the controversy in regard to 
evolution was raging with fiercest intensity, the ques- 
tion of spontaneous generation had become limited to 
organisms so minute that their existence was unknown 
and unsuspected in Redi's time and for generations 
thereafter. At the time of the publication of *'The 
Origin of Species," the only organisms which any sci- 
entific man supposed to be spontaneously generated 
were bacteria. These are organisms of extreme minute- 
ness, unicellular, and so simple in structure as to be 
destitute of any conspicuous nucleus. In the common 
classification which somewhat arbitrarily distributes 
the lower and simpler organisms between the vegetable 
and the animal kingdoms, these organisms are referred 

242 



Bacteria and Putrefaction 

to the vegetable kingdom. It has long been well known 
that, whenever a liquid containing some of the more 
complex organic compounds, as, for instance, an in- 
fusion of meat or cheese or hay, is exposed to the air 
for a time at a moderately warm temperature, it un- 
dergoes a chemical change revealed by those extremely 
disagreeable odors which we call the odors of putre- 
faction, and, if examined under a high power of the 
'microscope, it is found to be swarming with bacteria. 
These two phenomena, namely, the peculiar form of 
chemical decomposition which we call putrefaction, and 
the appearance of swarms of certain species of bacteria, 
are always found to accompany each other. Their 
uniform relation of coexistence suggests that they 
stand to each other also in a causal relation ; but which 
is cause, and w^hich is effect? Does the chemical 
change of putrefaction afford the necessary condition 
"for the spontaneous generation of bacteria? or is the 
multiplication of bacteria the cause of the chemical 
change? That is the question which was hotly dis- 
cussed in the middle of the nineteenth century. 

Of course there is no doubt about the matter now. 
The researches of Pasteur and others have conclusively 
proved that the bacteria owe their existence to normal 
processes of reproduction, and that the putrefaction of 
the liquids is the effect and not the cause of the multi- 
plication of the bacteria. It is curious how completely 
Redi's classical experiment, by which he disproved the 
spontaneous generation of maggots, was the type of 
the more refined and elaborate experiments by which 

243 



The Origin of Life 

the spontaneous generation of bacteria was disproved. 
A very simple experiment of the sort may be made as 
follows : — If we put into a flask a small quantity of 
some putrescible infusion, stuff the neck of the flask 
with a plug of cotton wool, boil the liquid for two or 
three hours, and then leave the flask for some days 
exposed to the atmosphere under ordinary conditions 
of temperature; in the majority of cases no bacteria 
will appear in the liquid, and the liquid will not un- 
dergo that form of chemical change which is called 
putrefaction. Whatever living organisms may have 
existed in the liquid at the commencement of the ex- 
periment, will have been killed by the boiling ; and the 
introduction of organisms or spores of organisms from 
without will have been prevented by the plug of cotton 
wool. The plug of cotton wool, in fact, serves pre- 
cisely the same purpose as the sheet of gauze in Redi's 
experiment, only it is practically a net of finer meshes 
adapted to catch more minute objects. The parallelism 
between the experiment of the seventeenth century and 
those of the nineteenth may be carried a step further. 
As Redi found the eggs of flies on his sheet of gauze, 
and hatched them into maggots, so we may introduce 
into the liquid upon which we are experimenting some 
of the cotton with which the flask is plugged in the 
experiment just described, and the result will be that 
the liquid will quickly swarm with bacteria, and un- 
dergo the consequent putrefactive change. Germs 
which had been floating in the air have been caught in 
the cotton wool. 

244 



Experiments of Pasteur and Others 

I have said that, under the conditions of the experi- 
ment above described, the liquid will ordinarily remain 
for an indefinite time free from bacteria and free from 
putrefaction; but in some cases, if the experiment is 
carried on precisely as has been described, bacteria will 
appear, and putrefaction will commence. For a long 
time these conflicting results at the hands of different 
experimenters, under what seemed essentially similar 
conditions, were very puzzling indeed. It appeared, 
in general, that the higher the temperature to which 
the liquids were subjected and the longer the time of 
their exposure, the less likely were bacteria to appear. 
The conflicting results are now perfectly intelligible. 
We know that the appearance of bacteria in experi- 
ments of the general class under discussion was due 
in some cases to the blunders of careless or incompe- 
tent experimenters. But in other cases the appearance 
of bacteria was due to the fact that the spores of many 
species of bacteria are much more tenacious of life 
than are the organisms in their active condition. Such 
spores may be killed by the use of extremely high 
temperatures; or the organisms into which they de- 
velop may be killed by prolonged boiling or by boiling 
repeated at intervals. 

A very important side light was thrown upon the 
question of spontaneous generation by the investiga- 
tions of Tyndall, the English physicist. He showed in 
his experiments that, if a beam of intense light, as from 
a powerful electric lamp, passes through a chamber 
filled with air in which are floating solid or liquid 

245 



The Origin of Life 

particles of extreme minuteness, the path of the beam 
will be manifest by a pale blue radiance like the azure 
of the sky, the result of the selective scattering of the 
rays of shortest wave-lengths from the surfaces of these 
minute particles. The blue of the sky, in fact, is due 
precisely to such a selective reflection of sunlight from 
minute solid or liquid particles floating in the atmos- 
phere. On the other hand, Tyndall showed that, if a 
strong beam of light passes through a chamber filled 
with air entirely destitute of solid or liquid particles, 
the path of the beam will not be revealed. There be- 
ing nothing to reflect the light, that part of the cham- 
ber through which the beam is passing will have the 
same utter blackness as the rest. It was thus shown 
to be possible by optical means to determine whether 
a portion of air does or does not contain minute solid 
or liquid particles. Now, it was further shown that 
putrescible liquids can be exposed for indefinite periods 
of time to air that is destitute of floating particles, 
without becoming infected by bacteria and without any 
putrefactive change; while the same liquids, if exposed 
to air in which the optical test reveals the presence of 
solid particles, quickly become infected. It was thus 
shown that under ordinary conditions atmospheric air 
contains countless multitudes of solid particles, some 
of which are bacteria or spores of bacteria. 

It would lead us too far away from the subject 
which we have in hand, if we should undertake to speak 
of the results of modern bacteriological study. The 
value of the contributions which bacteriology has made 

246 



Exploration of the Ocean Bottom 

to hygiene and medicine is absolutely incalculable. The 
knowledge of the bacterial origin of many diseases pre- 
pares the way for the discovery of means of prevention 
and of cure. The diffusion of infectious diseases by 
means of contamination of water and milk we have 
learned effectively to prevent. Antiseptic surgery 
performs with little peril operations involving the open- 
ing of internal parts of the body, which in former times 
would have been almost certainly fatal. But of course 
we are at present concerned only with the bearing of 
bacteriological investigation upon the question of spon- 
taneous generation. 

About the same time that the question of sponta- 
neous generation of bacteria was eagerly discussed, 
there was a hope of some light on the question of the 
origin of life from another direction. Those same 
years, just after the middle of the nineteenth century, 
were marked by the beginning of activity in the ex- 
ploration of the depths of the sea and in the investiga- 
tion of the life of the abyssal zone. In those dark 
abysses, where the conditions might reasonably be sup- 
posed to have remained substantially unchanged for 
countless ages, it was thought that we might w^ell ex- 
pect to find still surviving representatives of the earliest 
forms 6f life; and, wdien, in a sample of ooze from 
the ocean bottom which was under microscopic ex- 
amination, there was seen a vague, shapeless, slimy 
something, it was taken for granted that the earliest 
and simplest type of life had been discovered — a dif- 
fused mass of unorganized protoplasm. Professor 

247 



The Origin of Life 

Huxley bestowed upon the newly discovered creature, 
thus hailed as the representative of the ancestral form 
of all life, the name Bathybius. Bathybius, however, 
was soon pretty thoroughly discredited. It turned out 
to be in the main simply a slimy precipitate of gypsum, 
resulting from the action of the strong alcohol used 
as a preservative material upon the salts in solution in 
the sea-water. It may have consisted in part of the 
debris of various organisms that had gone to pieces. 
Evidently Bathybius could throw no light upon the na- 
ture of the earliest organisms and the problem of the 
origin of life. Huxley frankly acknowledged that 
Bathybius was a mistake;* and that, I believe, is the 
judgment of nearly all zoologists. It may be re- 
marked incidentally that the failure to find at the bot- 
tom of the sea samples of the primitive unorganized 
protoplasm from which life might be supposed to have 
started, was not the only disappointment connected 
with the exploration of the ocean bottom. In general, 
the expectation of finding there extremely archaic 
forms which would throw light upon the early stages 
of the evolution of sub-kingdoms and classes was dis- 
appointed. The life of the abysses seems for the most 
part not to be of very ancient types, but to consist 
chiefly of forms whose ancestors migrated into that 
region of darkness from other bathymetric zones. Ref- 
erence has already been madef to the interesting sug- 
gestion of Morris and Brooks, that life probably com- 
menced, and most of the main types of life were 

* Nature, vol. xx, p. 405. t Page 205. 

248 



Bathybius 

evolved, not at the bottom, but at the surface, of 
the sea. 

It must therefore be confessed that we have no defi- 
nite knowledge in regard to the origin of life. The 
belief in the evolutionary origin of life has absolutely 
nothing in its support except the force of general anal- 
ogies; and the estimate that will be put by different 
thinkers upon the value of such analogies depends very 
largely upon subjective conditions. Conclusions that 
rest only on analogy must be held tentatively and not 
dogmatically. Yet I believe that a qualified and pro- 
visional acceptance of the conclusions to which analogy 
points is more philosophical than their rejection. When 
we trace a continuous evolution from the nebula to 
the dawn of life, and again a continuous evolution from 
the dawn of life to the varied flora and fauna of to-day, 
crowned with glory in the appearance of man himself, 
we can hardly fail to accept the suggestion that the 
transition from the lifeless to the living was itself a 
process of evolution. Though the supposed instances 
of spontaneous generation all resolve themselves into 
errors in experimentation, though Bathybius proves to 
be only precipitated gypsum, though the power of 
chemical synthesis, in spite of the vast progress it has 
made, stops far short of the complexity of protoplasm, 
though we must confess ourselves unable to imagine 
a hypothesis for the origin of that complex apparatus 
which the microscope has revealed to us in the infini- 
tesimal laboratory of the cell, are we not compelled to 
believe that the law of continuity has not been broken, 

249 



The Origin of Life 

and that at least a reasonable hypothesis in regard to 
the method of transition from the lifeless to the living 
may yet be within reach of human discovery? That, 
I believe, is to-day the attitude of most scientific men; 
and that faith in the evolutionary origin of life, pro- 
vided it be held tentatively and never asserted dog- 
matically, seems to me amply justified. Whether in- 
vestigation is destined in the near future to throve any 
additional light upon the question of the origin of life, 
it were vain to prophesy. It seems not impossible that 
chemistry may throw some light upon the origin of 
the characteristic materials of the living body. It is 
a significant fact that the phrase, "chemistry of the car- 
bon compounds," has well-nigh taken the place of the 
old phrase, "organic chemistry," as one after another 
of the compounds formerly supposed to be capable of 
production only in the living laboratory of the vegetable 
or animal cell has been produced by artificial synthesis. 
It is a long history of progress from Wohler's synthesis 
of urea in 1828 — the first breach effected in the wall 
which partitioned off organic from inorganic chemistry 
— to Schiitzenberger's synthesis of peptone in 1891. 
Surely we must believe the end is not yet in the knowl- 
edge of the chemical materials of the livrng body and 
their possible origin. A cell, indeed, is not merely a 
minute quantity of protoplasm, but an elaborate or- 
ganism. Yet the nuclear apparatus in different cells 
exists in very different stages of development, and it is 
not impossible that the comparative study of the sim- 
plest forms of cell structure may throw some light 

250 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

upon the problem of the origin of that wondrous 
mechanism. There seems no reason to expect success 
in any experiments in the direction of spontaneous 
generation. The evolution of protoplasm and of cells 
may have occupied long periods of time, and there is 
little probability that protoplasm and cells can be manu- 
factured under the conditions of laboratory experimen- 
tation.* Though we must confess ourselves completely 
ignorant of the method of the origin of life, yet, if we 
are to choose between the two alternatives of a belief 
that the process of the origin of life, if known, would be 
found to be a part of a continuous system of evolution, 
and a belief that that process is utterly out of relation 
with all other known facts of the universe, the scientific 
mind can hardly hesitate to choose the former. 

theological bearings of EVOLUTIONf 

We must now give our attention to the effect of the 
theory of evolution upon religious belief. We have 
seen that the first phase of the evolution theory de- 
veloped in modern times was the astronomical phase — 
the nebular theory. The announcement of that theory 
did not occasion any very violent theological contro- 
versy. Some theologians Indeed declared, in opposi- 
tion to the nebular theory, that, according to the Bible, 
"the worlds were framed by the word of God,"t and 

* Pearson, The Grammar of Science^ 2d edition, p. 34Q. 

+ Gray, Dariviniava ; Le Conte, Evolution, and Its Relation to Religious 
Thought ; McCosh, The Religious Aspect of Evolution ; Schurman, The Eth- 
ical hnport 0/ Daiwinism ; Drunimond, The Ascent of Man ; Tyler, The 
Whence and the Whither 0/ Man; Fiske, Through Nature to God; Smyth, 
Through Science to Faith. % Hebrews, xi, 3. 

251 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

not by the law of gravitation. Those theologians forgot 
that the law of gravitation, like every other law of 
nature, is the word of God. Nor did the rise of evolu- 
tionary doctrine in geology excite any violent theo- 
logical opposition. Geology, indeed, was bitterly op- 
posed in its earlier history, not because it was supposed 
to be contradictory of theistic belief, or of Christian 
belief in general, but because it was supposed to con- 
tradict the Scripture text in regard to the antiquity 
of the earth and man; and, with the abandonment of 
the dogma of inerrancy of Scripture, the conflict be- 
tween theology and geology is at an end. 

But the publication of Darwin's • 'Origin of Species" 
marked the beginning of the most intense theologico- 
scientific controversy of our time. The younger gen- 
eration of students to-day can hardly appreciate the 
agonies of terror with which the doctrine of evolution 
was regarded by many Christians three or four decades 
ago, and the intense bitterness with which the theory 
and its advocates were denounced. It is true that there 
were some men then sagacious enough to recognize 
that the acceptance of evolution would not destroy 
theistic or Christian belief. Very soon after the publi- 
cation of Darwin's book, Asa Gray, Professor of Bot- 
any in Harvard University, and, in my judgment, the 
most profoundly philosophic naturalist our country has 
ever produced, wrote an essay entitled, "Natural Se- 
lection Not Inconsistent with Natural Theology."* 
The bearing of evolution upon the theistic question is 

* Atlantic Monthly, i860; DarwinianOy p. 87. 
252 



Feelings Excited by Darwin's Book 

treated in that essay in so masterly a fashion that 
scarcely anything more on that point needs to be said 
to-day. While there were Christian men of science 
who accepted evolution and found it perfectly con- 
sistent with Christian faith, there were men more dis- 
tinctly recognized as theologians who took the same 
philosophical view. Prominent among these was 
James McCosh, then President of Princeton Univer- 
sity. Yet it was a wide-spread belief, both within and 
without the Christian church, that, if a belief in or- 
ganic evolution should be generally accepted, Chris- 
tianity was doomed to extinction. Of course all that 
is changed. An irenic era has followed the period of 
conflict. The curriculum of a theological seminary is 
hardly regarded as complete to-day w^ithout a course of 
lectures on the consistency of evolution with theistic 
philosophy. In this peaceful era it is easily possible 
to underrate the effects which the theory of evolution 
must produce upon theological belief. Justin McCar- 
thy, in his brilliant, but sometimes rather flippant, 
^'History of Our Own Times," refers to the violent 
controversy that arose after the publication of Dar- 
win's book, and records his opinion that the contro- 
versy was entirely unnecessary, since "Darwin's theory 
might be accepted by the most orthodox believer with- 
out the firmness of his faith moulting a feather." I 
suspect, however, that the question whether a man was 
compelled to moult some feathers of his theological 
plumage or not, would depend considerably upon what 
might have been the precise character of the plumage 

253 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

which he wore before. It is certain that some theo- 
logical beliefs which were very commonly held before 
the beginning of the epoch of evolutionary thought 
must be very seriously modified. 

It is not, indeed, necessary to spend any time in 
proving that evolution is not atheistic* Ages ago, be- 
fore modern science was dreamed of, Saint Augustine 
distinctly taught that the theological idea of creation 
included mediate as well as immediate creation — crea- 
tion through the operation of secondary causes, as well 
as creation by direct and processless fiat. For many 
generations the communicants of the Church of Eng- 
land, and many other English-speaking worshipers, 
have joined in the language of the general thanksgiv- 
ing, in which God is praised "for our creation, preser- 
vation, and for all the blessings of this life," though I 
suppose no one of those worshipers has imagined that 
he himself was brought into existence by a direct fiat 
of God without any process of secondary causation. 

The theory of evolution is indeed the implacable foe 
of that sort of theistic philosophy which has been hap- 
pily satirized in the phrase, "the carpenter God." The 
evolutionist cannot believe in a God who once in the 
remote past built a universe, and who now manipulates 
it from without. The evolutionist cannot accept the 
theistic philosophy which regards nature in its ordinary 
course as self-acting, and recognizes the presence 
and the agency of God only in unusual and startling 

* See fuller discussion of the personality of God and of his relation to the 
universe in Part II. 

254 



Evolution not Atheistic 

events. The God who is seen only in the supposed 
gaps in the continuity of nature, is a God in whom the 
evolutionist can have no faith. In answer to the ques- 
tion of the Catechism, ''Who made you?" a smart boy 
is said to have answered, "God made me so big" — 
measuring off on his arm about what he supposed to 
be his stature at the time of birth, — "and I grew the 
rest myself." Of all that kind of theistic philosophy 
evolution is the implacable foe. But evolution is per- 
fectly in harmony with the faith of ancient Hebrew 
bards who saw God's presence in all the beauty and 
majesty of nature, who heard God's voice in every 
tone of nature's music, who knew no difference be- 
tween the natural and the supernatural in a world 
which was everywhere full of God. The evolutionist 
can join in the worship of One 

"Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean, and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man :"— 

a God in whom "we live and move and have our being." 
Nor need we now spend any time in discussing the 
conflict or the harmony between evolution, and the sec- 
ond and the third chapter of Genesis. The relation of 
the early chapters of Genesis to scientific facts and the- 
ories has been already sufficiently discussed ;* and we 
have seen that the supposed necessity of reconciliation 
between scientific beliefs and the Scripture text arose 
only from the dogma of the inerrancy of the Bible, 
which forms no part of the catholic faith of the church, 

* Page 8i. 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

and whose influence has been always pernicious. Of 
course the evolutionist does not believe in the manufac- 
ture of Adam out of the dust of the ground, nor in the 
manufacture of Eve out of a rib, nor in the historic 
character of the story of Eden in general. How far the 
story of Eden is conscious allegory, and how far it is 
legend erroneously supposed to be history, is a question 
of purely literary criticism. 

It is in the department of anthropology that our the- 
ological beliefs are most seriously affected by the the- 
ory of evolution. There is no reasonable doubt that 
man himself, at least as regards his physical nature, is 
a product of evolution. Man is an animal, a member 
of the sub-kingdom Vertebrata, the class Mammalia, 
the order Primates. Zoological classification has the 
same meaning in its application to man as in regard to 
other organisms. The reference of man to a sub- 
kingdom or class or order expresses the degree of his 
structural resemblance to other animals. The evidence 
of evolution that is afforded by homologies of structure 
is the same in regard to man as in regard to other 
vertebrates. Those embryological laws which are so 
strongly indicative of evolution may be amply illus- 
trated from the body of man. In the human embryo, 
the aorta branches into a series of arches homologous 
with the branchial arches of the fish, and the pharynx 
develops a series. of pouches homologous with the gill 
pouches of a shark.* Man's body is a perfect museum 
of rudimentary organs, from the rudimentary muscles 

* See page 184. 
256 



Evidences of Evolution of Man 

that can no longer prick up the ears, to the rudimentary 
muscles that can no longer wag the rudimentary tail; 
from the rudimentary third eyelid which can no longer 
brush dust from the eyeball, to the rudimentary in- 
testinal caecum, whose only known function is appendi- 
citis. It is often said that there are no intermediate 
links between man and any ape-like form. It is in- 
deed true that we cannot trace a series of fine grada- 
tions between man and any ape-like form, but it is not 
true that we have no evidence of gradation. Among 
the very few human skulls which are certainly or prob- 
ably of Quaternary age, several bear a character more 
simian than is typical of any existing race. In those 
skulls, the low, retreating forehead, and the very 
strongly developed superciliary ridges, give to the skull 
an extraordinarily simian aspect. So long as the 
Neanderthal skull, the earliest discovered of this type, 
stood alone, it could reasonably be supposed to be an 
individual exception, abnormal or even pathological. 
But it is simply incredible that so large a proportion 
of the known fossil skulls as exhibit characters similar 
to those of the Neanderthal skull can be merely indi- 
vidual exceptions. The fragment of a skull found a 
few years ago in Java presents the simian characters in 
decidedly greater degree even than the Neanderthal 
skull. So strongly simian, indeed, is the aspect of the 
Java skull, that some anatomists and paleontologists 
have considered it the most man-like of apes,* rather 

* It was described by its discoverer under the name Pithecanthropus erectus. 
See page 77. 

257 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 



than, as seems more just, the most ape-Hke of men. 
A skull in regard to which able anatomists can dispute 
whether it is human or simian is certainly in some 
degree an answer to the demand for the production of 
the "missing link." The facts seem to render it well- 
nigh certain that in Quaternary time there was de- 
veloped a race of men more simian in type than even 

the lowest race of sav- 
ages now existing, and 
ranging from the East 
Indian Archipelago to 
western Europe. There 
is indeed a wide gap 
between even the Java 
skull and that of the 
highest of the anthro- 
poid apes. As nearly 
as can be estimated in 
the fragmentary condi- 
tion of the Java skull, 
its cranial capacity must 
have been not much 
less than twice that of 
the gorilla, though the 
weight of the gorilla is considerably greater than 
that of man.* It is, of course, by no means cer- 
tain that any very fine gradations between man and 

* Dubois estimates the cranial capacity of Pithecanthropus as somewhat 
more than 900 cubic centimeters. Smithso7iian Report^ 1898, p. 449. The 
cranial capacity of adult gorillas varies from about 400 to about 600 cubic 
centimeters. The capacity of normal adult human skulls varies from about 
1,000 to about 1,800 cubic centimeters. 

258 




Fig. 12. — Upper surface of skull 
of Pithecanthropus erectus. 
From Keane's " Ethnology." 



The Missing Link 

his simian ancestry ever existed. We have ah'eady 
seen''' that there is reason to beheve that the very large 
variations which occasionally occur have played a con- 
siderable role in the history of evolution, and it is not 
at all unlikely that man himself may have originated 



/ •" 




Fig. 13. — Profiles of human and simian skulls. The skulls are 
all reduced to the same length, and the base line extends from 
the glabella (at the left of the figure) to the posterior margin 
of the foramen magnum (at the right). 1, Papuan (modern); 
2, fossil skull from Spy, in Belgium ("Spy, No. II"); 3, fossil 
skull from Neanderthal; 4, Pithecanthropus erectus; 5, chim- 
panzee. Taken (with modifications) from Le Conte's "Ele- 
ments of Geology." 

by the sudden appearance of variations of an extraor- 
dinary character. The fact should, moreover, be con- 
sidered, that there has been as yet no very thorough 
geological exploration in any region which can reason- 
ably be supposed to be the cradle of the human race. 

* Page 224. 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

That man did not originate in western Europe is sub- 
stantially certain. From this point of view it is an ex- 
ceedingly significant fact that the most ape-like human 
skull thus far discovered has been found in the East 
Indian Archipelago, the land of the orang and the 
gibbon. 

Assuming, then, that man is a product of evolution, 
what modifications must we make in theological be- 
liefs concerning man ? In the first place, it may be said 
that the effect of the acceptance of evolution is simply 
to show that the origin of the earliest human beings 
was exactly the same as that of their successors. In 
regard to all subsequent generations of human beings, 
there is no doubt whatever that each individual has 
originated, as regards his physical organism, by a proc- 
ess of secondar}^ causation which is pretty well under- 
stood. But what is the origin of the soul or spirit — 
of the something, however it may be named, assumed 
as the substratum of thought and feeling and will? In 
all the Christian centuries, two different views have 
been maintained among theologians in regard to the 
origin of the soul of each individual. The doctrine 
which, at least in modern times, has been generally 
considered the most strictly orthodox, is the doctrine 
of creationism. According to this view, while the body 
of the individual is evolved by a well-known process 
of secondary causation, the soul of every individual is 
created by a direct fiat of the Deity. The soul is in its 
origin thus independent of the body with which it is 
associated ; but, by the decree of the Creator, it is 

260 



Creationism and Traducianism 

mysteriously united with the body, at some time be- 
fore, at, or after birth, and remains united to the body 
during this earthly life. As the soul is independent of 
the body in its nature and origin, it may be supposed to 
survive after the dissolution of the body. The other 
view, which has been maintained by theologians of 
repute and influence in every age of the church, is the 
doctrine of traducianism. It maintains that the indi- 
vidual inherits not simply his physical organism, but 
also his spiritual nature, from his parents. Some of 
the older traducianists conceived the doctrine in such 
form as to involve a dormant pre-existence of indi- 
vidual souls from the beginning of human history. Ac- 
cording to this phase of the traducianist doctrine, the 
souls of the whole human race came into existence at 
the time of the creation of Adam, were stored up in 
his body, and have been gradually distributed in sub- 
sequent generations. A theory so grotesque it is need- 
less to discuss. Enough to say that no such doctrine 
can breathe the atmosphere of the twentieth century. 
The only form in which the traducianist doctrine can be 
held at present, is that of an actual procreation of the 
soul — a procreation of that essence, whatever it may 
be, in which inhere the spiritual faculties of human 
nature. Thus conceived, I believe that traducianism 
leads by a logical necessity to some sort of monistic the- 
ory of human nature. Every conception we can form of 
procreation, generation, or reproduction, in any mode 
whatever, involves the idea of the division of the sub- 
stance of the parent. It is a part of the parent that is 

261 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

converted into the new organism, in every form of re- 
production, alike in the animal and in the vegetable 
kingdom; and any process analogous to procrea- 
tion in the case of an indivisible unit, such as the 
human soul has generally been assumed to be by 
those who have held the dualistic view, seems utterly 
unthinkable. 

The question of the origin of man is therefore 
closely connected with the metaphysical question of 
the unity or plurality of essence in human nature. The 
fundamental fact which any theory of human nature 
is bound to recognize is that the experience of thought, 
feeling, and will, which constitutes the conscious life 
of man, is in some way connected with the form of 
organized matter which we call the human body, and 
especially with the chief ganglionic center of the nerv- 
ous system, the brain. Every physiologist believes that 
every state of consciousness is correlated with some 
definite molecular change in the matter of the nervous 
system, in such sense that a being possessed of suf- 
ficient intelligence could infer the character of the state 
of consciousness from the knowledge of the molecular 
change, or infer the molecular change from the knowl- 
edge of the state of consciousness. 

Some psychologists and philosophers have indeed 
denied that there is evidence of such a correlation. I 
quote from a text-book of psychology, which has been 
widely used in our schools and colleges:* ''We grant 
that the landscape which we see must first be pictured 

* Porter, Elemetits of Intellectual Science, p. 19. 
262 



Mind and Brain 

on the retina. But what change or affection of the 
material organism occurs when the soul, at the sight 
of this landscape, images another like it, calls up by 
memory a similar scene, or by creative acts of its 
own constructs picture after picture? or what bodily 
changes precede desire and disgust, hope and fear, at 
these memories and creations? No such changes have 
ever been discerned." That the cerebral changes which 
accompany the changing states of consciousness have 
not been discerned, is very certain. Men are not accus- 
tomed to do a large amount of thinking, with the roof 
of the skull removed, and with the brain placed under 
a microscope for the examination of its histological 
changes, or subjected to chemical reagents to detect 
the oxidations or other processes which may be going 
on in the minute laboratories of its cells. But that such 
changes are going on in connection with every process 
of thought or emotion is certain. When the mind be- 
comes increasingly active, we have good reason to 
believe that an increased supply of blood goes to the 
brain, and an increased amount of chemical change 
takes place in that organ. The chemical changes are 
undoubtedly accompanied by histological changes.* 
The machinery is working vigorously, though the de- 
tails of its working are beyond our view. It is true in- 
deed that the induction of a correlation in detail be- 
tween particular states of consciousness and particular 
changes in the brain goes .far beyond the reach of 
actual or possible proof by observation or experiment. 

* Page 140. 
263 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

But this is no more than is true of the doctrine of con- 
servation of energy and of the Newtonian law of gravi- 
tation. The broad inductions which are the most 
valuable results of scientific investigation, are based 
upon the indications of experience, but transcend the 
range of experience. The acceptance of "psycho-phys- 
ical parallelism," as a generalization of the relations 
of two orders of phenomena, is amply justified,* what- 
ever may be thought of the metaphysical doctrines 
which the phrase is often understood as implying. 

But, however intimate may be the correlation be- 
tween states of consciousness and cerebral changes, the 
two orders of phenomena are utterly disparate and in- 
commensurable. The brain and nerves are matter, and 
their molecules are subject to the same physical and 
chemical laws as other material molecules. All cere- 
bral changes must be assumed to conform to the law 
of conservation of energy. f In the last analysis, the 
cerebral changes which are correlated with states of 
consciousness are simply motions of certain portions 
of matter through certain distances in certain times. 
They are theoretically capable of being completely 
formulated in terms of mass and velocity. But a state 
of consciousness has no spatial relations whatever ; and 
to speak of formulating a state of consciousness in 
terms of mass and velocity is absolute nonsense. 

A philosophical theory of human nature must rec- 
ognize, on the one hand, the correlation between states 
of consciousness and cerebral changes, and, on the 

* Baldwin, Development and Evolution^ p. lo. f Page 139. 

264 



Materialism, Spiritualism, Dualism, Monism 

other, the disparateness and incommensurability of the 
two orders of phenomena. 

The metaphysical theories which profess to formu- 
late the mutual relations of the physical and the psy- 
chical in man may be classed under the four titles of 
materialism, spiritualism, dualism, and monism.* 

Materialism assumes that the physical organism is 
the one real substance in which both orders of phe- 
nomena inhere. Psychical activities must be consid- 
ered as functions of the brain. Whatever cannot be 
formulated in terms of physical change is repudiated, 
slurred over, or ignored. A characteristic expression 
of the position of extreme materialism is the statement 
of Karl Vogt : — "As contraction is the function of the 
muscles, and as the kidneys secrete urine, so, and in 
the same way, does the brain generate thoughts, move- 
ments, and feelings." If this language means any- 
thing, it seems to imply that thoughts and feelings are 
a form of matter or a form of motion. The two alter- 
natives are equally absurd. Spiritualism is the exact 
contrary of materialism. "It claims that the so-called 
body has only a phenomenal existence ; the body is but 
a series of phenomena that are indeed of a special or- 
der, but are phenomena of the reality called mind, and 
are to be referred to such reality as their sole ground. "f 
While this mode of thought is satisfactory to a few 
metaphysicians, most men feel that it affords no ade- 

* These words, all of which have been used by different writers with some- 
what different meanings, are employed here in the senses in which they are 
defined by Professor Ladd, in his Philosophy of Mind ^ ch. ix, x. 

t Ladd, Philosophy of Mind ^ p. 288. 

265 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

quate recognition of the facts of experience. To re- 
gard the external universe as a mode of activity of 
the Divine Mind may be legitimate. But to make our 
bodies and material things in general phenomena of 
our own minds is felt by most men to be a contradic- 
tion of their inalienable belief in the objective reality 
of the universe. Dualism is the philosophy which is 
in general naively accepted by men of common sense 
who have studied neither science nor philosophy ; and, 
in spite of aU its difficulties, it is held by many of the 
most philosophical thinkers. Certainly the most ob- 
vious way of formulating the significance of the dual- 
ity of phenomena presented in human experience is by 
the supposition of a duality of essence. Monism aims 
to recognize the duality of experience which lies at the 
foundation of dualism. It does not, like materiahsm, 
slur over the facts of subjective experience; nor does 
it, like spiritualism, seem to make the objective world 
an illusion — a creation of the mind itself. But the 
monist is impressed with the difficulty of the conception 
of the interaction of two entities distinct in nature and 
origin. Monism, accordingly, conceives the two or- 
ders of phenomena that constitute our dual life as 
inhering in a single essence. "The ego is not com- 
pounded of body and soul, but it is a determinate stage 
of evolution of being, which, contemplated from dif- 
ferent standpoints, divides itself into bodily and spir- 
itual being."* 

* Wundt, Vorlestmgen uber die Menschen- tmd Thierseele, vol. i, p. 293. 
The sentence quoted stands as the motto of Romanes' essay on Monism {Mind 
and Motion^ and Monism^ p. 39). 

266 



Dualism and Monism 

The belief has been somewhat generally entertained 
that all ethical and religious doctrines require as their 
logical basis a dualistic conception of human nature; 
and particularly that, unless man possesses a spirit 
altogether distinct from matter in nature and origin, 
there can be no such thing as moral responsibility, and 
no hope of immortality. In this belief men have been 
anxious to find, somewhere between the realm of in- 
organic matter and the realm of human life, a chasm 
so wide as to compel the admission of a distinct entity 
in human life utterly apart from matter. Under the 
influence of this line of thought, theologians have gen- 
erally regarded with fear and aversion those scientific 
facts or theories which suggest the idea of a continuity 
through all grades of existence, from Inorganic matter 
to man. The doctrine of the correlation of physical and 
vital forces, which we have considered in the discussion 
of the general doctrine of the conservation of energy,* 
has been looked upon with suspicion, as tending to 
destroy the line of demarcation between living and 
non-living matter. In the middle of the last century, 
when the question of the spontaneous generation of 
bacteria was being earnestly investigated, it was felt 
by many religious men that the establishment of spon- 
taneous generation would overthrow all ethical and 
religious faith. From the same standpoint, the belief 
in the evolutionary origin of life, now held by many 
scientific men upon the more general ground of the 
analogies of nature,f seems as objectionable as the 

* Page 136. t Page 249. 

267 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

same belief when based upon the supposed result of 
experiment. 

It is obvious that a belief in the evolutionary origin 
of man involves no absolute logical contradiction of the 
most orthodox dualism in philosophy and creationism 
in theology. Evolution logically demands only that the 
origin of the earliest human beings should be acknowl- 
edged to be the same as that of their successors. The 
dualist is perfectly at liberty to maintain that, in the 
case of the earliest human beings, as in the case of their 
successors, a body was developed by a process of evolu- 
tion, and a spirit created by a fiat of Deity was united 
with that body when it had attained the suitable stage 
of development. There is, then, no logical contradic- 
tion between the doctrine of evolution and the most 
orthodox belief in regard to the nature and origin of 
that substratum wherein inhere the spiritual endow- 
ments of humanity. 

Nevertheless I cannot escape the conviction that the 
tendency of evolutionary thought is decidedly towards 
monism ; and I am inclined to believe that the longer 
a man has been a believer in evolution, and the more 
completely the cells and fibers of his cerebrum have 
grown into adjustment with that idea, or (substituting 
a psychological for a physiological expression of the 
fact) the more completely his ideas on other subjects 
have become correlated with the idea of evolution, the 
less likely is he to be satisfied with the conception of a 
spirit created in absolute independence of the evolution 
of the body, and, in some utterly inscrutable manner, 

268 



Evolution Tends to Monism 

before, at, or after birth, attached to the body. The 
longer a man has been an evolutionist, the more 
incongruous appears the notion of an arbitrary con- 
junction of entities utterly distinct in nature and in 
origin. 

It is noteworthy that the theory of dualism, as held 
by some recent philosophers who are thorough evolu- 
tionists, takes on a quasi-monistic type. Thus Lotze, 
though he finds himself constrained to adopt a dualistic 
conception in order to account for the unity of con- 
sciousness, makes the origin of the soul a gradual proc- 
ess. "So long as the soul was regarded as indivisible 
substance, it could only be supposed to enter the body 
at a single instant and in its entirety; whereas, if we 
renounce these ideas of an external conjunction, we 
need no longer wish to fix the moment at which the 
soul enters into a development which at first is sup- 
posed to produce only physical actions. There is noth- 
ing to prevent us from looking at the formation of the 
soul as an extended process in time, a process in which 
the Absolute gradually gives a further form to its 
creation."* Professor Stumpf, while keenly criticizing 
the difficulties of monism, verges yet more closely upon 
monism : "I would even find no serious difficulty in 
the assumption, that psychical life (soul) was pro- 
duced by organic processes (organic material) in par- 
ticular stages of their development, and is even now 
produced in the development of every individual."! 

* Metaphysic^ English translation, 2d edition, vol. ii, p. 184. 

t Eroffnungsrede^ Third International Congress for Psychology. 

269 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

This is certainly very far from the old-fashioned dual- 
ism and creationism.* 

Certainly there are not wanting strong indications 
that the psychical endowments of man are, like his 
physical characteristics, the result of a process of evo- 
lution. As we rise from the lowest unicellular or- 
ganisms, we find complexity of structure and com- 
plexity of function advancing pari passu. Particularly 
we find those functions which seem to indicate intelli- 
gence advancing pari passu with the development of 
the nervous system. In the cerebral hemispheres of 
man we find a ganglionic apparatus far surpassing in 
delicacy and complexity that of any other animal, and 
in correlation therewith we find man manifesting an 
unequaled range and variety of psychical function. 

It is not by any means easy to formulate the psy- 
chical difTerences between man and brute. The whole 
subject of comparative pS3^chology is profoundly dif- 
ficult, since, in the study of brute psychology, we are 
necessarily destitute of that light of consciousness 
which is the "master light of all our seeing" in human 
psychology. We cannot even demonstrate the falsity 
of the position which Descartes and some other phi- 
losophers have held, that brutes, even the highest, are 
absolutely destitute of consciousness; that their ap- 
parent manifestations of intelligence are only apparent ; 
that the pathetic cry of a wounded dog differs from 
the cry of the toy dogs which children pinch, only in 
being produced by a mechanism more delicate and com- 

* See also Ladd, Philosophy oj Mind, p. 363. 
270 



Difficulty of Comparative Psychology 

plex, both mechanisms being ahke unconscious. But, 
though that view is not demonstrably false, it has never 
commended itself to many thinkers as probable. The 
actions of the higher mammals are so much like our 
own that it seems immensely probable that those ac- 
tions have their root in psychical states essentially sim- 
ilar to ours. And when we attempt, on the basis of 
inference drawn from outward actions, to discrim- 
inate the range of psychical faculty common to brute 
and man from that which is peculiar to man, it becomes 
obvious that clear delimitation is difficult or impossible. 
Again, the endowments characteristic of humanity 
manifest themselves not all at once, but gradually, in 
the life of the individual and in the life of the race. 
The new-born infant manifests none of the character- 
istic mental endowments of humanity. Months must 
pass in his development before he is capable of any 
action distinctively human. The phrase which we so 
constantly use in regard to the early history of our 
race, '"'the infancy of humanity," is far more than a 
figure of speech. It recognizes the truth, confirmed 
by all sources of evidence, in regard to the prehistoric 
condition of humanity, that the dawn of distinctively 
human endowments was gradual in the race as in the 
individual. The development of psychical faculties in 
the human individual, so far as they are common to 
man and brute, seems to follow the same order that is 
shown in the succession of animal forms from those 
low in the scale to the highest. In other words, in 
psychical endowment there seems to be the same paral- 

271 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

lelism between ontogeny and phylogeny which exists 
in respect to physical characteristics, and which has 
been referred to* as affording strong evidence of the 
theory of evolution in general. It is difficult to see 
why that parallelism of ontogeny and phylogeny does 
not have the same significance in regard to psychical 
as in regard to physical characteristics. 

If we were acquainted with no creatures between 
inorganic matter and man, there would be little room 
for doubt that the dualistic philosophy would best 
formulate the facts of our experience. But the series 
of gradations afforded by the lower orders of life in- 
troduces great perplexity in the application of that phi- 
losophy. How much of the group of characters which 
distinguish man from inorganic matter shall we at- 
tribute to the presence of a soul or spirit? and how 
many of the other creatures on earth, if any, shall we 
suppose to be endowed with such an immaterial entity ? 
Three possible alternatives present themselves : — 
I. We may suppose that man alone has a soul, and 
we may consider as diagnostic of its presence the 
higher, supersensuous range of mental life which seems 
to be peculiar to man. Theologically, this view is 
convenient, as furnishing a plausible ground for the as- 
sertion of moral responsibility and immortality as be- 
longing to man alone. But we are brought into per- 
plexity on the psychological side, when we attempt to 
deal with the fact that the actions of the higher ani- 
mals are so similar to our own as to render it probable 

^ Page 183. 
2^2 



Wpiat are the Attributes of Soul? 

that they have to some extent the same psychical facul- 
ties. If we assume that in man the higher psychical 
faculties belong to the spirit and the lower ones to the 
body, we contradict the testimony of consciousness to 
the unity of our psychical life. If we assume that sen- 
sation, association, instinct, and other psychical facul- 
ties which appear to be common to man and brute, are 
functions of spirit in man and of body in brute, we 
attribute phenomena that appear identical to different 
causes. On both these suppositions we admit that mat- 
ter may be conscious, and so undermine the foundation 
of dualism. There remains the alternative of denying 
that brutes are conscious. But few have the hardihood 
to take that position. 

2. We may suppose that all animals have souls, and 
we may consider consciousness as the characteristic of 
soul. This w^ould seem very plausible if our knowl- 
edge of the animal kingdom were limited to those ani- 
mals which considerably resemble ourselves. There 
does seem, indeed, a chasm of inconceivable breadth 
between the conscious and intelligent life of a man, or 
even of a dog, and the unconscious life of a tree. But, 
as our knowledge of the kingdoms of animate nature 
becomes more complete, we recognize that animal in- 
telligence is a thing of infinite gradations. The lowest 
animals show no more sign of intelligence than the 
lowest plants. Indeed, there is absolutely no line of 
demarcation between the lowest animals and the lowest 
plants. There is no character which can be affirmed 
to be diagnostic of the two kingdoms, and it is only 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

arbitrarily and conventionally that some of the lowest 
organisms are parceled out between the botanists and 
the zoologists. From the simplicity and apparent un- 
consciousness of unicellular life to the complexity and 
intelligence of mammalian life, the progress is by an 
indefinite series of gradations. Nowhere can we draw 
a sharp line of demarcation, and say, on one side is 
unintelligent, on the other intelligent, life. 

3. We may suppose that all living things, vegetable 
as well as animal, have souls; and we may consider 
life as characteristic of soul. A plausible argument, 
indeed, has been advanced by Professor Ward* for 
the belief that plants have some rudimentary form of 
consciousness. The forms of life from which both 
plants and animals originated, along divergent lines of 
evolution, were in all probability possessed (like most 
animals) of the function of locomotion, though capable 
(like most plants) of feeding on inorganic materials. 
If motion in the lower animals is to be considered a 
sign of consciousness, then the ancestors of plants must 
have been conscious. Hence it may be imagined that 
some vague trace of consciousness survives in their de- 
scendants. It is of course as impossible to demonstrate 
the absence of consciousness in a monad or an oak as 
to demonstrate its presence in a dog or an ape. But a 
belief in the consciousness of unicellular organisms cer- 
tainly rests on pretty shadowy foundations. In the 
structure and functions of a unicellular organism, it is 
difficult to see any more reason for postulating the ex- 

* Naturalism and Agnosticism^ vol. i, p. 287. 
274 



Theory of Tripartite Nature of Man 

istence of a distinct spiritual entity residing in the 
organism, than in the structure of a crystal or the action 
of a magnet. Moreover, it should be noticed that any 
argument for a faith in immortality which may be 
drawn from a dualistic philosophy is of very doubtful 
theological value, if, by parity of reasoning, it requires 
us to claim immortality for toads and toadstools, 
monads and microbes. An argument which proves too 
much proves nothing. 

In the perplexity as to the question where, if any- 
where, a line is to be drawn between soul-endowed man 
and soulless inorganic matter, one is naturally reminded 
of the notion of a plurality of souls — vegetative, sensi- 
tive, rational — held by the medieval schoolmen. A 
modification of that view has been in recent years 
somewhat discussed In theological circles. The an- 
tithesis between if^vxi] and nvevfia and their respective 
derivatives In several passages of Paul's Epistles* has 
given some support to a supposed Biblical philosophy 
which asserts for man a "tripartite" constitution, as 
body, soul, and spirit. There is no reason to believe 
that Paul Intended to teach any definite system of 
metaphysics; and. If he did have such an Intention, it 
would be Important only to those who hold that the 
inspiration of the apostles made them Inerrant. 

The alternatives for the philosophical thinker seem 
to be dualism and monism, but with a third alternative 
of suspended judgment — agnosticism. Certain It Is 
that there are three seeming interruptions In the con- 

* I Thess., V, 23; I Cor., ii, 14, 15 ; xv, 46. 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

tinuity of nature, as traced by our present knowledge — 
between non-living and living, between unconscious 
and conscious, between non-human and human. We 
have no experimental evidence of the conversion of 
non-living into living matter, or of the origin of living 
beings otherwise than by normal processes of repro- 
duction. However closely correlated cerebral changes 
and states of consciousness may be, the two classes of 
phenomena are utterly disparate, and we can conceive 
of no bridge spanning the chasm between them. How- 
ever impossible it may be to formulate the psycholog- 
ical differences between brute and man, there is a chasm 
of measureless breadth between the psychical life of 
the brute, and the language and literature, the science 
and philosophy, the history and politics, the morality 
and religion, of man. The case would be clearer for 
dualism if there were one chasm instead of three. 

It seems unmistakable that the tendency of biolog- 
ical thought in general, and evolutionary thought in 
particular, at the present time, is towards monism. 
But that fact is very far from conclusively establishing 
the truth of a monistic philosophy. The doctrine of 
evolution in its modern form has been before the minds 
of men so short a time that its real significance has 
not been adequately comprehended, and its correla- 
tion with other elements of knowledge and thought 
has not been thoroughly worked out. The present 
tendency toward monism may be simply an example 
of the crude and premature philosophizing which re- 
sults from the dominance in thought of a new idea as 



Psychology the Basis of Ethics 

yet imperfectly comprehended. Whether the move- 
ment of the world's thought towards monism is a cur- 
rent destined to go steadily onward, or a tide which 
will flow for a few hours and then ebb, time alone can 
show. But surely in the present state of human thought 
w^e cannot feel that faith in duty and in immortality 
rests upon a very secure foundation if it can rest only 
on a dualistic philosophy. 

We must find the foundation of ethics and conse- 
quently of religion, not in ontology, but in psychology; 
not in the assumption of a spiritual entity absolutely dis- 
tinct from the bodily organism, but in the inexpugnable 
belief of personal freedom and responsibility. The ego 
believes itself, and cannot help believing itself, to be 
free and responsible ; and that necessary belief affords a 
foundation for ethics and religion, which is altogether 
independent of any metaphysical dogmas as to the es- 
sence or the essences of the ego, and equally independ- 
ent of any biological hypotheses as to the process by 
which the ego came into existence.* 

It is often taken for granted that, if conscience in 
man is a product of evolution, moral distinctions have 
no permanent basis, and therefore no validity. Presi- 
dent Schurman of Cornell University, however, has 
shown with great acuteness and wisdom that the ques- 
tion of the objective basis and validity of ethical dis- 
tinctions is entirely distinct from the question of the 
origin of man's capacity for the recognition of moral 
distinctions. The eye is undoubtedly a product of evo- 

* For fuller discussion of the freedom of the will, see p. 290. 

277 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

lution, and in all probability the evolution of that or- 
gan has been mainly due to the principle of natural 
selection. But natural selection has evolved the eye 
only because the eye is useful, and the eye is useful 
only because its possessors live in a luminous universe. 
In like manner, President Schurman argues, the hu- 
man conscience is in all probability a product of evolu- 
tion, and its evolution has probably been due in large 
degree to the principle of natural selection. But natu- 
ral selection could evolve a conscience only because a 
conscience is useful, and conscience is useful only be- 
cause its possessors live in a moral universe — a uni- 
verse governed by "a power which makes for righteous- 
ness." The eye and the conscience alike are useful 
only because they bring their possessor into relation 
with objective truth. ''^ 

That natural selection has operated effectively to 
force mankind into the practice of some of the virtues 
is certain. Those traits of character which we are ac- 
customed to Call the manly virtues, as courage and 
fortitude, enterprise and activity, fidelity and loyalty, 
must obviously have been greatly dependent in their 
development upon the stern action of natural selection. 
In intertribal warfare, those tribes which possess 
these virtues in greater degree will be sure to gain the 
victory, and the tribes less advanced in these respects 
will disappear by extermination or by absorption into 
the races that have conquered them. But Drummond, 
in his "Ascent of Man," and particularly in the bril- 

^ Ethical Import of Darwinism^ ch. iv. 
278 



Ethical Effect of Natural Selection 

liant chapters on "The Evolution of a Mother" and 
"The Evolution of a Father," has shown how natural 
selection has operated in the development of a very 
different class of traits of character, namely, the do- 
mestic virtues. A certain deg-ree of domestic vir- 
tue — a certain approximation to right relations be- 
tween husbands and wives and between parents and 
children — is necessary in order that children in large 
numbers may be reared to maturity. A tribe which 
is destitute of the domestic virtues, must be few in 
numbers, because the children born will not be suffi- 
ciently well cared for to be reared to maturity. In 
default of parental care, they will early perish by dis- 
ease or by starvation. In the ages of intertribal war- 
fare, other things being equal, the tribe in which do- 
mestic virtues exist in such degree as to secure the 
rearing of large numbers of children must overpower 
the tribe in which the children are left to starve.* 

Nor is faith in immortality dependent upon a dual- 
istic conception of human nature. It is a profoundly 
significant fact that Christianity, with Judaism and 
Mohammedanism, which are respectively incomplete 
and corrupted phases of Christianity, stands alone 
among the religions and the philosophies of the world in 
teaching an embodied immortality. It is not the immor- 
tality of a disembodied spirit that Paul preached on the 
Areopagus amid the scoffs of Athenian philosophers, 

*See also Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, part ii, ch. xxii. To Fiske 
belongs the credit of the fruitful suggestion that tlie lengthening of the period 
of infancy necessitated the permanence of the family, and was therefore a fac- 
tor of inestimable importance in the evolution of the social and moral life of 
humanity. 

279 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

but dvdoraoig — resurrection. If a monistic philoso- 
phy should become established, it would indeed banish 
all forms of the faith in immortality which find their 
rationale in the conception of spirit as an essence dis- 
tinct and separable from the body. The swan-song 
of Socrates would be hushed; but the voice of One 
greater and wiser than Socrates might still be heard 
as clear and strong as nineteen centuries ago, ^T am 
the resurrection and the life." 

Recent philosophical thought attaches very little 
value, as proof of immortality, to the supposed indi- 
visibility of the soul.* Lotze, though advocating the 
philosophy of dualism, finds in the dualistic conception 
no valid argument for immortality. "The question of 
the immortality of the soul does not belong to meta- 
physic. We have no other principle for deciding it 
beyond this general idealistic conviction; that every 
created thing will continue, if and so long as its con- 
tinuance belongs to the meaning of the world ; that 
everything will pass away which had its authorized 
place only in a transitory phase of the world's course."f 

A definite formulation of the method of immortality 

* " We are not, I imagine, concerned to resuscitate the rational psychology 
of the Leibniz-Wolffians which Kant demolished, in order to establish the im- 
mortality of the soul on grounds which equally prove the immortality of 
atoms." Ward, JVattira/tsm and Agjtosticism^ vol. ii, p. 192. 

"The soul, however, when closely scrutinized, guarantees no immortality 
of a sort we care for. The enjoyment of the atom-like simplicity of their sub- 
stance in scBCula scECulorum would not to most people seem a consummation 
devoutly to be wished. The demand for immortality is nowadays essentially 
teleological. We believe ourselves immortal because we believe ourselves _/?/" 
for immortality. A substance ought surely to perish, we think, if not worthy 
to survive ; and an insubstantial stream to prolong itself, provided it be 
worthy, if the nature of things is organized in the rational way in which we 
trust it is." James, Principles of Psychology, vol. i, p. 348. 

\ Metaphysic, English translation, 2d edition, vol. ii, p. 182. 

280 



Immortality 

must obviously transcend the reach of our knowledge. 
The dualistic doctrine permits a statement of the con- 
ditions of immortality in which the words appear in- 
telligible; but, while the survival of a disembodied 
spirit may be a phrase verbally intelligible, it surely 
transcends the power of beings whose only expe- 
rience of mental action has been in relation with a 
physical organism to conceive the actual meaning of 
disembodied existence. In a remarkable book entitled, 
"The Unseen Universe," published anonymously a 
quarter of a century ago, but later acknowledged as the 
work of Peter G. Tait and Balfour Stewart, two of 
the leading English physicists of this generation, a 
suggestion is offered which shows at least that the idea 
of immortality on a monistic basis is not irrational. 
These writers set forth the idea that the universe of 
m.atter is more complex than at first sight it seems. In 
addition to that form of matter which is tangible, phys- 
ical science has already compelled us to postulate the 
existence of another form of matter, the luminiferous 
ether, so refined and tenuous that it does not directly 
impress our senses. Only by the supposition of such 
a more tenuous form of matter interpenetrating or- 
dinary forms of matter, can we formulate the vibra- 
tions of radiant energy which are the ground of the 
phenomena of light and heat. That complexity which 
we have been already compelled to attribute to matter 
involves, of course, the possibility of still further com- 
plexity. There may be phases of matter as much more 
tenuous than ether as that is more tenuous than oxy- 

281 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

gen or carbon. From a physiological standpoint, the 
condition of the persistence of memory and self-con- 
sciousness must be found in the continuous record of. 
all our states of consciousness, which is made by the 
molecular changes going on in the brain. Though it is 
impossible to say what those changes are, no physiolo- 
gist doubts that some cerebral change is correlated with 
every state of consciousness, and that thus the minute 
structure of the brain at any moment is a record of all 
previous experiences in life. At death, that record 
apparently goes to destruction, for the brain shares in 
that chemical decomposition which is the fate of the 
rest of the body. But, as Tait and Stewart suggest in 
the book to which I have referred, that record may be 
made in duplicate. When the brain that we can see 
and analyze and dissect suffers decomposition, there 
may survive, in some more tenuous form of matter 
which has interpenetrated the matter of the brain and 
shared in its developmental changes, a duplicate of that 
record of past states of consciousness, which may serve 
as a medium for the persistence of memory and self- 
consciousness in a future life. Of course the sugges- 
tion of these eminent physicists is not to be accepted 
as a dogma. The authors themselves had doubtless no 
such thought in regard to it. It is only a tentative 
suggestion, indicating that personal immortality on a 
purely monistic basis is not an irrational belief. It is 
surely a contribution of some value to religious thought 
to show that we can conceive of a possible method of 
immortality on a monistic basis. A somewhat similar 

2S2 



The Fall 

conception of the method of the future hfe, though not 
formulated in so definite accord with the conceptions 
of modern physics, is found in the teaching of that 
brilliant but erratic genius, Swedenborg. 

A theological doctrine which must certainly undergo 
some change under the influence of a belief in evolu- 
tion is the doctrine of the Fall. It is obvious that the 
evolutionist cannot accept as historic the story of Eden, 
as given in the second and the third chapter of Genesis. 

The doctrine of the Fall, as it appeared in some of 
the older forms of Christian theology, was a tremen- 
dously far-reaching doctrine. It was supposed that not 
only man himself experienced a great change, but that 
the whole universe suffered a tremendous catastrophe, 
at the time of Adam's sin. Snow-covered mountains and 
burning deserts, deleterious weeds, venomous reptiles, 
and ravenous beasts, were supposed to be the result of 
the curse pronounced upon the world on account of 
Adam's sin. It is needless to say that geological sci- 
ence peremptorily excludes any such notion. But, 
after the idea of a general transformation of the phys- 
ical universe consequent upon Adam's sin had been 
abandoned, the idea was still maintained that a vast 
and terrible change passed upon man himself. It was 
supposed that the earliest human beings were beings 
of supernal intellectual and moral elevation. In the 
striking language of Doctor South, a leading theo- 
logian of two hundred years ago, "an Aristotle was 
only the rubbish of an Adam." The same belief of the 
superiority of Adam and Eve to all their posterity is 

283 



Theological Bearings of Evolution 

expressed with somewhat doubtful grammatical pro- 
priety by Milton, when he calls Eve ''the fairest of 
her daughters," and Adam ''the goodliest man of men 
since born." Whatever we may think of the poet's 
grammar, there is no doubt about his meaning. 

It is needless to say that the modern anthropologist 
cannot accept any such conception of the primitive con- 
dition of humanity. Such a conception, indeed, finds 
very doubtful support in the ancient traditions pre- 
served to us in the early chapters of Genesis, and cer- 
tainly finds no support in the discoveries of prehistoric 
archaeology. The evolutionary anthropologist must of 
course believe that the human race originated in in- 
fantile weakness of intellect, and in that characterless 
innocence which necessarily precedes the beginning of 
moral conduct. 

Nevertheless, while the legend of the Fall passes 
away, the doctrine of the Fall remains. For, beneath 
the form of legend, allegory, or myth, lies veiled the 
profoundest truth of human history. The interpreta- 
tion of the doctrine of the Fall demanded by evolu- 
tionary anthropology may be expressed in a single 
word : — the Fall was not actual, but potential. There 
was no precipitation of man from a condition of su- 
pernal intellectual and moral elevation into abysmal 
degradation ; but there was, with the first act of sin, a 
potential fall, absolutely measureless, in the forfeiture 
of possibilities inconceivably glorious. Imagine a 
race of animate beings becoming possessed, no matter 
how, of free-will and conscience. What imagination 

284 



Not an Actual, but a Potential Fall 

can picture the possibilities of development in such a 
race if every volition of every individual were right? 
Beyond all thought would be the glory of humanity, in 
individual and in social development, in the progress 
of a civilization unmarred by sin. It is sin and sin 
alone that has forfeited that possibility of boundless 
glory. 

The form in which that truth is expressed in the 
Eden tradition is essentially Semitic. A general tend- 
ency is personified. The transmission of the effect of 
sin from generation to generation, partly, doubtless, in 
spite of Weismann, by physiological inheritance, but 
chiefly, doubtless, by the effect of conscious and un- 
conscious education, is represented under the symbol 
of a fall in Adam. We fell in Adam only in the sense 
in which we have fallen in all our sinning ancestors, 
and in all those whose sins are embodied in the evil 
traditions and institutions that pervert human life 
to-day. 

To this conception of the Fall the soteriology of the 
New Testament adjusts itself without difficulty. Christ 
came, not to make man what Adam was, but to make 
man what Adam might have become if he had not 
sinned ; not to restore a Paradise once possessed, but to 
create a Paradise whose boundless possibilities of glory 
had been forfeited through sin. 

285 



PART II 

STATUS OF CERTAIN DOCTRINES OF 

CHRISTIANITY IN AN AGE 

OF SCIENCE 



PART II 

Status of Certain Doctrines of Christianity in an 

Age of Science 

In the former part of this work we have traced the 
history of those scientific discoveries which have been 
chiefly important in modifying reHgious behefs. We 
have traced the development of those three general con- 
ceptions which essentially characterize the scientific 
view of nature ; namely, the extension of the universe 
in space, the extension of the universe in time, and the 
unity of the universe. We have pointed out the 
changes in theological belief which seemed to be neces- 
sitated by each of these great series of scientific investi- 
gations. We must now consider the present status of 
some important theological doctrines, not as affected 
by any one scientific discovery, but as viewed through 
the general intellectual atmosphere of a scientific age. 

The Personality of Man* 

The belief in a personal God is often called the 
fundamental doctrine of theology. There is, however, 
one other belief still more fundamental — the belief in 
a personal man. A man who believes himself to be 

*See Fisher, The Grounds of Theisfic and Christian Beliefs ch. i. The 
reader will readily recognize my indebtedness to Professor Fisher's admirable 
discussion. 

289 



The Personality of Man 

simply a ripple on the sea of events, and human life 
in general to be merely an episode marking a particular 
stage in the refrigeration of a nebula, is not likely to 
believe in a personal God; but one who thoroughly 
believes in his own personality generally finds it easy 
to believe in the personality of God. 

The essential attribute of personality is self-deter- 
mination. In discussing the theological bearings of 
the doctrine of evolution, it has been pointed out 
already* that the belief in the freedom of the will is 
not dependent upon any dualistic theory as to the dis- 
tinction in essence between spirit and matter, and is 
not contradicted by the doctrine of evolution. The 
importance of that belief, as the foundation of all 
ethics and religion, merits a somewhat more extended 
discussion. 

Doctor Samuel Johnson is said to have disposed of 
the question of the freedom of the will with the re- 
mark, "I know I am free, and that is the end of it" — 
a concise and a pretty satisfactory statement of the 
essential reason for believing in freedom. It is often, 
indeed, erroneously said that we are conscious of free- 
dom. That, of course, is impossible. A man is con- 
scious of nothing but actual mental states. He cannot 
be conscious of a potentiality. In accordance with a 
volition, I rise from my seat and begin to walk. I 
believe that I could have chosen to remain seated, but 
I cannot be conscious of that possibility. I am con- 
scious only of the actual volition. 

* Page 277. 
290 



Inalienable Belief in Freedom of Will 

The belief in the freedom of the will is like the belief 
in the trustworthiness of memory, the belief in the 
existence of an external universe, and other inalienable 
beliefs which enter into all our thinking. All these 
beliefs are undemonstrable, and most of them can be 
denied without logical absurdity. If any one denies 
the existence of an external universe, I certainly can- 
not prove to him its existence. If any one denies that 
memory is trustworthy, I cannot prove that it is; in 
fact, I have plenty of evidence in my own experience 
that my memory is not always trustworthy. Never- 
theless I must trust my memory because I have nothing 
else to trust. All practical life and all scientific reason- 
ing depend upon beliefs that have, in the last analysis, 
no other evidence than that we are so constituted that 
we have them and cannot get rid of them. If the whole 
physical and moral universe is an immense lie, it is 
at least a lie which we cannot detect and for which 
we are not responsible. If we act at all, we must act 
on the general postulate of the truthfulness of the 
universe. It is sound philosophy to assume the truth 
of our inalienable beliefs. 

Even those who in their philosophy profess to be- 
lieve in fatalism or determinism, act in all the practical 
affairs of Ijfe upon the belief of freedom. Their moral 
judgments of the conduct of themselves and others, 
and their spontaneous sentiments of complacency or 
remorse, of gratitude or resentment, bear testimony to 
a belief in freedom deeper than any philosophy ; "their 
conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the 

291 



The Personality of Man 

meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another."* 
In the old classical story, when Zeno, the Stoic phi- 
losopher, proposed to flog a slave that had been guilty 
of stealing, the slave answered, in the terms of the 
philosophy which his master had taught him, that it 
was fated for him to steal. The philosopher ingen- 
iously saved his consistency by answering that it was 
fated also that he should flog the slave; but his feel- 
ing of resentment was doubtless the same as if he had 
made no profession of philosophic fatalism. 

It is interesting to see how the philosophers who deny 
the freedom of the will deal with the common moral 
experiences of mankind. Spinoza has at least the merit 
of consistency. Holding the distinction of right and 
wrong to be merely artificial and conventional, he de- 
clares, "Repentance is not a virtue, or does not arise 
from reason ; but he who repents of any deed he has 
done is twice miserable or impotent." A philosophy 
which thus repudiates the deepest moral convictions of 
humanity needs no other refutation. It is curious to 
see how John Stuart Mill, who was a man of intensely 
vigorous moral nature, sought deliverance from the 
conflict between his philosophic creed and his moral 
convictions. He tells us, ''The true doctrine of the 
causation of human actions maintains that not only 
our conduct, but our character, is in part amenable to 
our will ; that we can, by employing the proper means, 
improve our character; and that, if our character is 
such that, while it remains what it is, it necessitates us 

* Romans, ii, 15. 
292 



Ethics of Necessarianism 

to do wrong, it will be just to apply motives which will 
necessitate us to strive for its improvement, and to 
emancipate ourselves from the other necessity." But 
the ingenious attempt at reconciliation between his 
philosophy and his moral sense is obviously a failure, 
for the volition to use means to change one's character 
must be just as truly necessitated as any other volition. 
If I am paralyzed in all my limbs, I can no more reach 
out my hand to grasp a friendly hand that would uplift 
me, than I can rise without help and walk. 

A belief which seems to be inalienable and necessary 
must be assumed to be valid unless it can be proved to 
be false. There have been some attempts to show that 
the freedom of the will involves a contradiction of 
accepted philosophical principles or scientific induc- 
tions. It is claimed sometimes that the doctrine of 
freedom contradicts the principle of causality. If 
the will, it is said, is not necessitated in its action by 
pre-existent conditions, the act of volition is an event 
without any cause. The simple answer to this phil- 
osophical objection is in the assertion that the very 
essence of personality is the capacity to act as an inde- 
pendent cause. I am myself the cause of my volition, 
and no other cause is needed. 

Again, it has been alleged that the doctrine of the 
freedom of the will is contrary to the scientific induc- 
tion of the conservation of energy. We have seen* 

* Pa^e 135. It is well to remark that the doctrine of the conservation of 
energy, though resting on strong grounds of probability, is, like all such in- 
ductions, undemonstrated and undemonstrable. It may not be absolutely and 
universally true. See discussion of Law in Nature, p. 321, 



The Personality of Man 

that, in the endless succession of changes in nature, it 
must be assumed that there is neither gain nor loss of 
energy, but only perpetual transformation. One form 
of energy passes into another, but an exact quantitative 
equivalence is maintained. There is no reason to doubt 
that the principle of conservation of energy holds in 
the changes of the human body, as truly as in the 
changes in inanimate nature ; in the processes that go 
on in the cerebrum, as truly as in those that go on in 
the muscles. If, then, a series of psychical states be- 
ginning with a sensation and culminating in an act of 
volition is followed by a muscular movement initiating 
a further series of transformations of energy, it is 
argued that the nexus between the successive mental 
states must be of the same nature with the nexus be- 
tween other terms in the series of events. I believe the 
true answer to this line of argument is in the 
position that the successive states of consciousness are 
not related as successive transformations of energy. 
Whether we adopt a dualistic or a monistic theory as 
to the essence of the conscious ego, it is certainly true 
that states of consciousness are an order of phenomena 
entirely disparate from those which are recognized by 
the physicist.* They may, for aught we know, inhere 
in the same essence; but, if so, that essence is so 
complex as to be the substratum of two sets of phe- 
nomena so utterly disparate as to have no quantitative 
relation to each other. All physical changes are move- 
ments of matter, formulable in terms of mass and 

* Page 264. 
294 



The Will, and the Conservation of Energy 

velocity. But to speak of the mass or velocity of a 
state of consciousness is to use words without meaning. 
Our states of consciousness are not terms intercalated 
in the series of cerebral changes. They are another 
series parallel with the series of cerebral changes. The 
nature of the nexus between the two series is some- 
thing absolutely beyond our ken. The changes in the 
sensory organs which follow a stimulus from the outer 
world, the changes in the cerebrum which are initiated 
by the changes in the sensory organs, the muscular 
movements which follow — all these doubtless obey the 
law of conservation of energy. But the states of con- 
sciousness associated with the cerebral changes are phe- 
nomena of a different order. They neither add to nor 
subtract from the energy of the cerebral movements. 
Some of the attempts that have been made to illus- 
trate the relation between volition and physical phe- 
nomena are based on wrong principles, and are mis- 
leading. Attention has sometimes been called to the 
fact that a movement involving a very small amount 
of energy often gives direction to a series of move- 
ments involving an immense amount of energy. The 
relatively small rudder directs the course of the large 
ship, although the energy involved in the turning of 
the rudder is but a minute fraction of that which ro- 
tates the screw. The energy required to pull the trig- 
ger of a gun bears a relation even more infinitesimal 
to the energy which is liberated by the explosion of 
the powder. So It has been said that volition repre- 
sents an infinitesimal amount of physical energy, but 

295 



The Personality of Man 

yet determines the course of a series of events involv- 
ing vastly greater amounts of energy. Such analogies 
are false, for the relation between the energy that 
moves the rudder and that which turns the screw is 
only the quantitative relation of less and greater. The 
energy that pulls the trigger is likewise quantitatively 
related to the vastly greater store of energy liberated 
by the explosion of the powder. But neither volition 
nor any other mental state has a quantitative relation 
to physical energy. The recognition of the absolute 
disparateness of the two classes of phenomena is essen- 
tial to sound thinking in regard to them. 

Experience compels us to believe that volition is a 
cause of bodily movements. No man of common sense 
can doubt the fact. It is indeed from the experience 
of volition that the idea of causality is derived. But 
there is no reason to believe that the mode of causation 
is a transformation of energy. Volition is not trans- 
formed into muscular motion, as heat is transformed 
into motion in the steam engine. Transformation of 
energy is not the only kind of causation that exists in 
nature. Our volition determines the order and direc- 
tion of the series of transformations of energy, prima- 
rily within our own bodies, secondarily in the outer 
world, not by contributing energy to the series, but by 
some other mode of causation none the less real because 
utterly incomprehensible. It is, indeed, no more in- 
comprehensible that a mental state should be the cause 
of a physical movement than that a physical move- 
ment should be the cause of a mental state. The very 

296 



Prediction of Human Actions 

simplest mental act, that of sensation, has obviously 
its cause in the changes in the sensory organs induced 
by an external stimulus. It is no more incomprehen- 
sible that mental states should be the cause of physical 
movements than that physical movements should be 
the cause of mental states. In each case the link of 
causation is real. In each alike it is incomprehensible, 
and in neither is it a transformation of energy into a 
quantitative equivalent. 

Again, it is objected to the doctrine of freedom that 
it is contrary to human experience. Men's actions, it 
is said, are capable of being predicted, and therefore 
they cannot be free. This line of argument takes two 
forms. In the first place, it is urged that the conduct 
of masses of men can be predicted. We can tell at the 
beginning of a year, with very close approximation to 
the truth, how many people in the State of Connecticut 
will commit forgery or murder or any other specific 
form of crime, how many will die by suicide, how 
many couples will marry, how many couples wnW be 
divorced. Now it is said that, since the conduct of 
men is thus predictable, it must be governed by some 
fixed law, and therefore the actions of men cannot be 
free. It is perhaps enough to reply that the approx- 
imate conformity of any particular class of phenomena 
to a law of averages shows nothing whatever in re- 
gard to the nature of the cause. It only indicates that, 
whatever the nature of the cause may be, it operates, 
when viewed statistically on a large scale, with an ap- 
proximation to uniformity. With the supposition that 

297 



The Personality of Man 

the will is free, and that every individual is absolutely 
the cause of his own volition, there is nothing incom- 
patible in the fact that the number of volitional events 
of any particular kind should conform to a law of aver- 
ages, since the substantial unity of human nature may 
be expected to show itself in a certain uniformity of 
average conduct. 

But, secondly, it is said, we can not only predict by 
statistical methods the conduct of masses of popula- 
tion, but can also in many cases, with very strong de- 
gree of probability, predict the action of individuals. 
Of two young men going into the army, we say that 
the temptations of camp life will make one a drunkard, 
while the other will be proof against them. Of two 
men called to the treasurership of institutions or cor- 
porations, w^e say that one will steal the money with 
which he is intrusted, while the honesty of the other 
would be safe if he had to handle all the wealth of all 
the Indies. In a considerable proportion of cases, pre- 
dictions of this kind made by men of shrewdness and 
knowledge of human nature are fulfilled. How, it is 
asked, can men's actions thus be predicted, if every 
volition is free? I am inclined to think the most sat- 
isfactory answer to that question has been given by 
Archbishop Temple in his Bampton Lectures.* The 
power of free agency, he tells us, though always poten- 
tial in men, is, as a matter of fact, rarely exercised. 
It is exercised only in those critical actions of life 
which are the determining points of character. Com- 

* The Relations between Religion and Science^ lect. iii. 
298 



Potential Free Agency 

paratively few times in the course of an individual life 
is the question definitely raised between the choice of 
right and wrong. In the vast majority of cases, though 
potentially free, we act mechanically, simply following 
out the general plan of life which we have adopted, 
simply obeying the motives to whose guidance we have 
already surrendered ourselves. A simple illustration, 
for which the Archbishop is not responsible, will pos- 
sibly help the understanding of his thought. I start 
from my house with a resolution to walk to the post- 
office. The action begins with a conscious volition, 
but that volition is not repeated at every step of the 
journey. Most of the steps, indeed, are not even con- 
scious. The automatic action of the spinal cord main- 
tains the rhythmic 'movement of my limbs until I find 
myself at my destination. In a manner somewhat 
analogous, we may say, at some critical epoch in his 
life a man consecrates his life to truth and goodness. 
He thus enthrones in his life a supreme purpose. In 
the exercise of his divine gift of freedom, he chooses 
duty rather than selfishness for the law of his life. But 
he does not have to make that solemn resolution every 
time he goes to church on Sunday, or to his office on 
a week day, every time he pays a debt, or gives a con- 
tribution to a missionary society. The details of his 
life simply follow spontaneously, mechanically, from 
the purpose once established. The two cases are, of 
course, not identical. In the former case, the succes- 
sive steps of the walk are unconscious, and physiolog- 
ically the nervous action involved is that of the spinal 

299 



The Personality of Man 

cord. In the latter, the details of duty by which the 
general plan of life is put into effect are conscious, and 
physiologically they involve the action of the cerebrum. 
But the two cases are analogous, in that in each case 
a higher faculty is exercised in the initiation of a 
course of conduct whose details are carried into effect 
by lower faculties. The reason, then, why the majority 
of individual actions are predictable is that in most of 
them there is no exercise of free agency. Precisely the 
thing which is not predictable by human intelligence is 
the conduct of the individual in those critical moments 
when character is made. 

xA^rchbishop Temple further points out the immense 
moral advantage of that constitution of human nature 
w^hich thus allows our actions to be virtually necessi- 
tated by our character. Therefrom it comes, in the 
moral development of the individual, that we do not 
have to fight over again the whole battle of life in 
every alternative of good or evil conduct which 
presents itself to us. There is, rather, the magnificent 
possibility that, by right decision in repeated critical in- 
stances, we can establish a character which will natu- 
rally and spontaneously practice the good. To that goal 
all moral education of ourselves or of others is directed. 
The full attainment of that goal is the blessedness of 
heaven. 

It is frankly admitted that freedom is incomprehen- 
sible; that it constitutes an exceptional phenomenon. 
We find nothing like it in the inanimate world, and 
probably nothing like it in the lower animate world. 

300 



The Personality of God 

But in ourselves an inalienable conviction declares the 
possession of that power. The utter incomprehensi- 
bility of that power is no reason why its existence 
should not be believed. The belief in our own freedom 
stands in the same rank with other necessary beliefs. 
It contradicts no necessary belief, no well-established 
induction. 

The Personality of God 

Belief in the personality of man makes it easy to 
believe in the personalit}^ of God. Probably everyone 
who does truh^ believe in his own personality, believes 
in a personal God or in personal gods. The conscious- 
ness of our own volition gives the first idea of causa- 
tion, in the experience of every individual. Hence 
primitive man refers all causation in nature to the will 
of beings like himself. In its crudest and most primi- 
tive form, theistic belief assumes an infinite multitude 
of little gods. This is the doctrine of animism. Every 
separate object which comes into relation with us, or 
affects us for good or evil, is conceived to be possessed 
of a nature like our own, and to act in a manner 
analogous to our own volition. 

But, as man's knowledge of the material universe 
advances, the multitude of little gods tends to give 
place to a smaller number of larger gods. As knowl- 
edge grows, men see that it is not necessary to assume 
the existence of a separate soul in every leaf or in 
every stone. The phenomena of nature come to be 
more or less classified; and, instead of postulating a 

301 



The Personality of God 

separate intelligence for each particular object, men 
postulate a special intelligence whose volition shall be 
the cause of each class of phenomena. So the universe 
may be divided locally into various realms; and men 
may think of one god of the heaven, and one of the 
earth, and one of the sea, and one, it may be, of that 
mysterious under-world of whose existence the earth- 
quake and the volcano give vague but terribly impress- 
ive intimations. Or, instead of a local classification, 
there may be a functional classification, as in the trinity 
of Hinduism, in which one of the great gods is con- 
ceived as the creator, a second as the preserver, and the 
third as the destroyer of all things. So, with in- 
creasing knowledge and deepening thought, animism 
develops into a more or less philosophic system of 
polytheism. 

It is needless to say that animism and polytheism 
belong to stages in human development which the civ- 
ilized world has long since passed by. The supreme 
generalization towards which science has moved from 
its crudest beginnings, is that of the unity of the cos- 
mos; and in a scientific age polytheism is impossible. 
The causa causamm, the ground of the universe, may 
be personal or impersonal, intelligent or unintelligent : 
it must be one. The unity of the cosmos proclaims in- 
dubitably the unity of that cause in which the cosmos 
has its being. 

The ground of belief to-day in one personal God is, 
in the last analysis, the same that led our savage ances- 
tors to believe in an infinite multitude of little gods. 

302 



The Argument from Design 

Tliat ground of belief in the personality of God or 
gods is, in its most general statement, a more or less 
complete analogy observed between the phenomena of 
nature and the activities of man. It was doubtless the 
experience of human volition that first suggested a be- 
lief in a personal god. The argument for the person- 
ality of God turns now chiefly on the manifestations 
in nature of something like the intellectual activities of 
man. The argument for the personality of God, from 
the supposed manifestations of intellectual activities in 
nature, will be recognized at once as the argument 
which has been commonly called the argument from 
design. The function and the importance of the argu- 
ment from design are recognized by all thinkers. The 
principle of causality forbids us to believe in an un- 
caused beginning. It compels us, therefore, to believe 
in the existence of something eternal and self-existent 
wherein lies the ground of all other existence. If there 
ever was a fool who "said in his heart, There is no 
God,' " meaning thereby that there is no eternal and 
self-existent something, the ground of all other exist- 
ence, it is safe to say that in the intellectual evolution 
of humanity that particular species of fool has become 
extinct. But the admission of an eternal and self- 
existent something leaves unanswered the question 
whether that something is unintelligent or intelligent, 
a blind force or a free and moral personality. The 
function, then, of the argument from design Is to es- 
tablish the probability that the eternal something is 
intelligent. 

303 



The Personality of God 

Every one is familiar with Paley's classical illustra- 
tion of the watch, whose mutual adjustment of parts 
bears testimony to the purpose for which it was made 
and to the intelligence involved in the making; and 
every one has recognized the ingenuity with which it 
is argued that the conclusion is not invalidated, 
although we may never have seen a watch made and 
may have no idea how it was made, although the watch 
sometimes goes wrong or seldom goes exactly right, 
although there are some parts for which we can dis- 
cover no use, and although it appears, on further 
examination, that the watch contains within itself a 
miniature watch factory, and is capable of producing 
a progeny of watches. As the argument was worked 
out by Paley, the stress was laid chiefly upon intricate 
and complex mutual adjustments. His illustrations 
from nature were taken chiefly from the complex struc- 
tures of the animal body. Of all illustrations the one 
which seemed to put the argument with the greatest 
cogency was that of the eye, as found in man and others 
of the higher vertebrates. The functional perfection of 
the eye depends upon the precise adjustment of the 
curvatures and refractive indices of a number of re- 
fractive media, placed in front of the sensitive retina, 
and guarded by a variety of protective apparatus. It 
can hardly be questioned that the force of the argu- 
ment as presented by Paley is seriously impaired, when 
we consider that the eye, like all other animal struc- 
tures, has come to be what it is by a process of evo- 
lution carried on mainly under the guidance of the 

304 



The Argument as Stated by Paley 

principle of natural selection. If the eye has come to 
be what it is by the survival of the fittest — desirable 
variations having been selected out of an indefinite 
multitude of variations which have occurred, while un- 
desirable variations have disappeared by the extinc- 
tion of their possessors, the evolution of the organ 
having begun with a form so simple as to be merely 
a pigment fleck covering the termination of a nerve, — 
it is certain that an argument based on the exquis- 
ite mutual adaptation of the parts of the eye does 
not have the same degree of cogency which it was 
supposed to have w^hen the eye in its most perfect 
form was looked upon as an independent and orig- 
inal production. A homely illustration may perhaps 
make the point a little clearer. If we should find 
a vessel packed nearly or quite solidly with a variety 
of objects, in such wise that the small objects filled 
the chinks between the large ones, and every salient 
angle of one object fitted exactly or approximately into 
a reentrant angle of another object or into a space be- 
tween two or more adjacent objects, there might be 
fair ground for an inference that some one intended 
the vessel to be full. But, if we were following the plan 
of the Paleyan natural theology, we should select for 
special consideration some object of exceedingly com- 
plicated form, and infer from the fact that its salient 
angles exactly corresponded with the reentrant angles 
in the adjacent objects, and vice versa, that its complex 
form was specially designed for the particular space 
which it was to fill. It cannot be denied that the force 

305 



"The Personality of God 

of such an argument would be seriously impaired, if it 
could be shown to be highly probable that the vessel 
had reached its present condition by a process of shak- 
ing, wherein the small objects had gradually rattled 
into the chinks between the large ones, and the hard 
objects had impressed their form upon the soft ones. 
This homely illustration sets forth not unfairly the 
manner in which the Paleyan argument is affected by 
the doctrine of evolution, and particularly by the Dar- 
winian theory of natural selection.* 

The question is thereby suggested whether the argu- 
ment from design is invalidated or only modified in its 
form. I believe that the latter alternative is the truth. 
Stress must be laid, not upon minute and special adap- 
tation of particular structures, but upon the general as- 
pect of law and formulable order pervading all nature. 
This thought is most happily expressed in a phrase 
used by the great mathematician, Benjamin Peirce, 
"the amazing intellectuality inwrought into the un- 
conscious material world. "f The argument from de- 
sign, in the light of recent scientific thought, may 
formulate itself somewhat in this wise : — A book which 
we can read must have been written by an intelligence 
kindred with our own; the universe is a book we can 
read; therefore the universe is the work of an intelli- 
gence kindred with our own. Nature has a meaning 
to us, and is formulable by us, because it is the expres- 

* An eleg^ant illustration bearing in the same direction may be found in 
Romanes, Thoughts ott Religion^ p. 58. 

t See a number of very striking quotations from this writer, in Fisher, 
Grounds of Theistic and Christian Beliefs revised edition, p. 34. 

306 



Wastefulness of Nature 

sion of a mind of which our own minds are miniature 
counterparts.* 

It may be remarked incidentally that the Darwinian 
theory of natural selection furnishes a relief from one 
of the difficulties which troubled the natural theolo- 
gians of former times. The apparent wastefulness of 
nature, in the production of countless myriads of living 
creatures destined to be destroyed in embryonic or in- 
fantile stages of existence, has always seemed some- 
thing unaccountable, and something very difficult to 
reconcile with the conception of a wise and benevolent 
Creator. Natural selection show^s the meaning and 
the purpose of this apparent waste. It shows that this 
over-production has been the very means by which the 
more advanced forms of life have been developed from 
the crude simplicity of earlier forms. I do not mean 
to say that natural selection furnishes a complete the- 
odicy. The unanswerable question may still be asked, 
whether there might not have been some better w^ay of 
reaching the development of the higher forms of life 
than through this process of wholesale slaughter ; but 
it is at least something to have shown that the seeming 
waste is not a waste, but is an effectual means of 
achieving a lofty end. 

But man projects into the outer world, to form his 
belief in God, not only his volition and his intellectual 

* " Nature itself is teleological, and that in two respects : (i) it is conform- 
able to human intellio:ence, and (2), in consequence, it is amenable to human 
ends. In the first point mentioned we find implied that essential oneness of 
thoug-ht and being-, that recognition of the intelligible by intelligence, that 
greeting of spirit by spirit, for which idealists have always contended." Ward, 
Naturalism a7id Agnosticism, vol. ii, p. 254, 



The Personality of God 

activities, but also his moral nature. The sense of 
moral law, which is an inalienable attribute of human- 
ity, suggests the notion of a lawgiver and a governor. 
Moreover, every individual, when he comes to con- 
sciousness, finds himself a subject of government in 
the family and the state ; and the outward experience 
of governmental relations in society concurs with the 
inward experience of an inalienable conviction of law, 
to suggest -the idea of a superhuman lawgiver and 
governor. The suggestion of a superhuman governor, 
thus derived, finds reinforcement in the not infrequent 
conspicuous examples of natural retribution for good 
or evil conduct. Though it is very far from being the 
truth that nature works upon man in his objective ex- 
perience a systematic and consistent retribution, the 
cases in which virtue leads to prosperity, and flagrant 
and abominable sin brings exemplary doom, are suffi- 
ciently frequent to give considerable encouragement to 
the notion of "a. power which makes for righteousness" 
outside of and above man. Hence, in all except the 
very lowest phases of religious belief, the gods have 
been conceived as moral governors. 

The character which man attributes to the gods de- 
pends of necessity largely upon his own character. The 
gods may be conceived as indifferent to sin, except 
when it takes the form of personal insult to themselves 
or of contumacious defiance of their authority ; or they 
may be conceived as absolutely impartial and incor- 
ruptible judges of all moral conduct. There is thus a 
truth in the remark of Feuerbach, that "man made 

308 



Religion always Anthropomorphic 

God in his own image." The same thought is ex- 
pressed in Robert Ingersoll's new version of a famihar 
quotation, *'An honest God's the noblest work of man." 
The ethical standard and the religious creed contin- 
ually act and react upon each other. The nobler the 
idea of morality to which man has attained, the nobler 
will be the character with which he will invest his God. 
The nobler man's thought of God becomes, the more 
elevated will be his own moral ideals. But in the 
highest forms of religion, as in the lowest, the concep- 
tion of God is derived from the experience of man. 
Hence the highest forms of religion are as truly anthro- 
pomorphic as the lowest. The faith which breathes 
itself in the prayer of all prayers, "Our Father which 
art in heaven," is as truly anthropomorphic as that 
earlier faith which gave us the story of Moses in the 
cleft of the rock, beholding the "back parts" of Jeho- 
vah, whose face no man could see and live;* as truly 
anthropomorphic as the mythology that has told us of 
the quarrels and amours of Olympus ; as truly anthro- 
pomorphic as the notions of the savage who beats his 
idol when his prayers are not answered. The differ- 
ence between the lower and the higher forms of re- 
ligious faith is not that the former alone are anthro- 
pomorphic, but that the gross anthropomorphism of 
the lower faiths is changed for a more refined anthro- 
pomorphism in the higher. There is an anthropomor- 
phism which attributes to God human limitations and 
imperfections; there is an anthropomorphism which 

* Exodus, xxxiii, 18-23. 



The Personality of God 

attributes to God the perfect ideals which man strug- 
gles after and forever fails to reach. But religion, 
low or high, in its origin, its evidence, and its essential 
nature, is anthropomorphic. 

But, while all religion is anthropomorphic, it is nev- 
ertheless true that anthropomorphism has ever been 
the weakness of religious faith. Man is ever subject 
to conflicting motives, hence his conduct is always in 
greater or less degree fickle and capricious. His ac- 
tions can never be predicted with any near approach 
to certainty. But very early in the experience of the 
human race it came to be recognized that many classes 
of natural phenomena can be predicted with substan- 
tial certainty. ^'While the earth remaineth, seedtim© 
and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and win- 
ter, and day and night shall not cease." The contrast 
between the predictability of natural phenomena and 
the unpredictability of human actions revealed the 
weakness of anthropomorphic faith. It was, I believe, 
Adam Smith who first called attention to the remark- 
able fact that gravitation has never been deified. There 
have been gods of sunshine and of storm, gods of birth 
and of death, but never a god presiding over that mys- 
terious power which brings all heavy bodies down to 
the earth. The obvious reason for this exception to the 
general deification of natural agencies and potencies is 
that the absolute uniformity of gravitation renders it 
impossible to attribute its action to the will of a fickle 
and capricious being like man himself or like the dei- 
ties made in man's image. This striking exception to 

310 



Weakness of Anthropomorphism 

the polytheistic explanation of nature is a premonition 
of the "conflict of science and religion" which has 
made so large a part of the history of theological opin- 
ion in the monotheistic stage of religion. For, as man's 
knowledge of nature increases, class after class of phys- 
ical phenomena is transferred from the realm of the 
unpredictable and seemingly capricious to the realm of 
the predictable and the law-governed. 

The fact that natural events can be predicted, in- 
stead of leading to doubt or denial of personality in 
the power that dominates nature, should have led men 
to a recognition of the difference between finite and 
infinite personality. The brute has a nature, but no 
character. He is governed irresistibly by the impulse 
of each moment, responding to every stimulus from 
the external v/orld which may affect his nervous gan- 
glia. It is man's prerogative to choose among the 
impulses of nature, and thus, by the exercise of free 
will, to build upon the foundation of nature the super- 
structure of character. With God, perfect from all 
eternity and changeless in his perfection, nature and 
character are one. With perfect wisdom and perfect 
goodness, there can be no conflict of motives, no 
change of conduct. With perfect knowledge of the 
conditions, every action of a perfect being could be 
infallibly predicted. Freedom of the will is the heaven- 
ward ladder by which we climb from the animal to 
the divine. If we could reach that goal, our actions 
would be predictable, like those of God. That higher 
anthropomorphism which attributes to God, not man's 



The Personality of God 

limitations and imperfections, but man's unattained and 
unattainable ideals, would have found no incompati- 
bility between the uniformities of nature and the per- 
sonality of the Power which dominates nature. Thus 
the conflict of science and religion might have been 
averted. 

But men were not ready for that higher anthropo- 
morphism. They clung to the lower anthropomor- 
phism which fancied God ''altogether such an one 
as" themselves. They could recognize no personality 
free from fickleness and caprice. They could recognize 
personal volition only in phenomena unpredictable and 
apparently lawless. A man may make a clock, wind it 
up, and leave it to run, occasionally interfering with its 
movements by moving the hands backward or for- 
ward, or by shortening or lengthening the pendulum. 
Then there will be uniformity in the ordinary move- 
ments of the clock, personal will and caprice in the 
occasional interferences. By some such conception 
theistic philosophy sought to take account of the uni- 
formity of nature and the apparent breaches of that 
uniformity. The universe was conceived as a gigantic 
mechanism, which God, the great artificer, constructed 
and set in motion at some time in the remote past, 
thereafter only interposing on occasions more or less 
rare to modify the rhythm of its movements. By this 
conception divine agency was removed from nature, 
except in the initial act of creation and in occasional 
interpositions. God was seen only in apparent gaps in 
the continuity of nature. 

312 



The Conflict of Science and Religion 

So there came a departure from the universal primi- 
tive faith in the immanence of God. Animism of 
course identifies every natural object with the indwell- 
ing personality. The stone is itself the god that strikes 
the savage when he stubs his toe. In a higher stage 
of religious development, the poets are the priests and 
prophets of polytheistic nature-worship. The Shining 
One (Dyaus, Zevg) is at once the bright sky and the 
deity that glorifies it. In the monotheism of Hebrew 
bards, God was always conceived as immanent in na- 
ture. He brings ''forth Mazzaroth in his season," and 
guides ''Arcturus with his sons." "With clouds he 
covereth the light." "He giveth rain upon the earth." 
"He giveth snow like wool." "The God of glory 
thundereth." "His lightnings enlightened the world." 

But the faith in the divine immanence which had 
glorified nature for Greek and Jew alike was aban- 
doned by popular theology. Nature became godless. 
The "carpenter God" was an absentee God. 

With this notion that the ordinary course of nature 
is independent of divine activity, and that God is to 
be seen only in the seeming gaps in the continuity of 
nature, the "conflict of science and religion" becomes 
inevitable. For the whole tendency of science is to fill 
the supposed gaps in the continuity of nature, and thus, 
as it appears, exclude God from the universe altogether. 
One by one, science annexes to the realm of law the 
districts in w^hich lawless personal will had been sup- 
posed to reign. It leaves no place for the Divine 
Artisan. Men who no longer saw God in the sunrise 

313 



The Personality of God 

and sunset, crouched in superstitious terror at the man- 
ifestation of divine anger in the ecHpse, until science 
showed that the ecHpse was only a less frequent mani- 
festation of the same system of law which is shown 
in sunrise and sunset. Then the darkness of the eclipse 
became as godless as the darkness of night. Banished 
from astronomy, God seemed to find an asylum in the 
realm of meteorology, for the changes of weather seem 
at first sight sufficiently capricious for the most grossly 
anthropomorphic deity. But, when the coming storm 
can be predicted though not even "a little cloud like a 
man's hand" can be seen, a God of tempest becomes as 
superfluous as a God of sun or moon. The tendency 
of science to close up the seeming gaps in the con- 
tinuity of nature has found its supreme manifestation 
in the development of the doctrine of evolution. The 
nebular theory showed that there was no breach of 
continuity in the origin of planets; the evolutionary 
geology showed that there was no breach of conti- 
nuity in the development of the earth's physical fea- 
tures ; and the evolutionary biology showed that there 
was no breach of continuity in the origin of new spe- 
cies, and suggested, on the ground of analogy, the prob- 
ability that there was no breach of continuity in the 
origin of life itself. It was, indeed, this stopping of 
the gaps in which alone the popular theology found 
the manifestation of God, that caused the agony of 
terror with which the theory of organic evolution was 
regarded for two decades or more after the publica- 
tion of "The Origin of Species." 

3H 



Continuity of Nature 

But analogy goes still further in the direction of 
maintaining the continuity of nature. The nebular 
theory traces the origin of the solar system from a 
nebula — most probably a swarm of meteors. But can 
we imagine that the nebula was absolutely the begin- 
ning? Does not analogy point to the belief that the 
nebula itself was evolved from some earlier condition 
of the matter of the solar system? And, when the 
solar system shall have finished this cycle of its ex- 
istence, and the dissipation of energy shall have 
brought the present life of the world to an end, can 
we expect an absolute end, or must we rather look for 
the beginning of a new chapter of evolution? Again, 
can we look upon the atoms which are the units of 
chemical change as being ultimate and Inexplicable 
facts — changeless since the supposed beginning of the 
universe? Few philosophical chemists would be con- 
tent to rest in that supposition. All analogy would 
lead us to believe that the present atomic constitution 
of matter is derived by some sort of evolution from 
some unknown earlier condition. Analogy is indeed a 
treacherous gtiide, and often leads us astray. But it 
is no less true that analogy is a guide that conducts 
us to the broadest and noblest outlooks that the human 
intellect can attain. We must follow her cautiously, 
indeed, but it is a foolish timidity that refuses to follow 
her at all. It cannot be too often repeated that no con- 
clusion resting only on analogy can be dogmatically 
asserted. But a qualified and tentative acceptance of 
the teaching's of analogy Is rational and prudent. 

315 



The Personality of God 

Thus science, in its well-established conclusions, and 
yet more in its analogical suggestions, contradicts the 
notion of the ^'carpenter God." It has no place for a 
God who dwells only in the breaches of continuity in 
nature. But, as we have already seen, this phase of the 
conflict between science and religion might have been 
entirely avoided, if men had been able to rise above 
that lower anthropomorphism which attributes to God 
the limitation, the imperfection, the caprice of man. 
The uniformity of nature is no contradiction to per- 
sonal will, but only to the personal will of a finite, im- 
perfect, changeful being. The will of a God who "is 
not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man 
that he should repent"* — a God changeless because 
perfect from eternity, — is not incompatible with the 
uniformity of nature: nay, is itself the ground of the 
uniformity of nature. Science tends to leave no gaps 
in which the Divine Artisan can find an asylum. But 
science has no contradiction to the faith in a God omni- 
present and immanent — a God who dwells in the con- 
tinuity of nature, not in the supposed breaches of 
continuity. 

We must pause, however, for a parenthetic notice 
of a remarkable argument by which two eminent scien- 
tific men have sought to re-establish the faith in a "car- 
penter God." Sir John F. W. Herschel asserted, and 
Professor Clerk Maxwell more recently endorsed the 
assertion, that atoms have the character of a "manu- 
factured article," and must therefore be held not to 

* Numbers, xxiii, 19. 
316 



Atoms Said to be Manufactured Articles 

be eternal, nor to have been evolved, but to have been 
made by a Divine Manufacturer at some definite time 
in the past.* This stamp of a "manufactured article," 
from which so tremendous a conclusion is drawn, is 
seen in the supposed absolute likeness of the atoms of 
any particular element. Whether the atoms of hydro- 
gen are detected in the atmosphere of the sun, or are 
liberated by the decomposition of water on the earth, 
the position of the lines which they show in the spec- 
troscope appears to be absolutely identical. But ob- 
viously the apparent identity of the spectral lines proves 
only that the atoms are so nearly alike that, with our 
present means of research, we can detect no differences 
between them. When we are speaking of things of 
which we know so little as we know of atoms, there is 
logically a boundless difference between saying that 
we know no difference between the atoms of hydrogen, 
and saying that we know there is no difference. The 
assertion of absolute likeness of atoms, upon which so 
far-reaching a conclusion is based, goes immeasurably 
far beyond the evidence. It is pretty certain that in 
many cases the molecules in an optically homogeneous 
crystal are not exactly alike, but only approximately 
alike. It is, on grounds of general analogy, probable 
that atoms of hydrogen are only approximately alike. 
It is not unlikely that more refined modes of research 
may sometime detect differences between them. The 
argument of Herschel and Maxwell has received, on 
account of the high and well-deserved reputation of its 

* Encyclopcedia Britanm'ca, art. Atom. 



The Personality of God 

authors, an amount of consideration which on its own 
merits it does not deserve. Surely it is far more phil- 
osophical to accept the conclusions to which we are 
pointed by all analogies of scientific thought, than to 
contradict those conclusions on evidence so weak.* 

The obvious goal to which the analogies of scientific 
thought are leading us, is the belief that the series of 
evolutionary changes which we see stretching back- 
ward into the remote past and forward into the indefi- 
nite future, has neither beginning nor end; that the 
nebulae from which systems have been evolved were 
themselves evolved; that existing forms of matter 
were evolved from other forms that we know not, 
and may pass into other forms of matter equally un- 
known; that creative Power and creative Intelligence 
have been eternally immanent in an eternal universe. 
I cannot help thinking that Christian theology will 
be the gainer by the acceptance of such a view. W« 
shall be relieved from the incongruous notion of a 
benevolent Deity spending an eternity in solitude and 
idleness. The contemplation of his own attributes 
might seem a fitting employment for a Hindoo Brahm. 
It hardly fits the character of the Pleavenly Father, of 
whom we are told that he *Svorketh hitherto.^f Surely 
no suggestion that has been offered relieves of its enor- 
mous unreasonableness the conception of the eternal 

* For an admirable criticism of the position of Herschel and Maxwell, see 
Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, vol. i, p. 99. The notion of the muta- 
bility and probable evolution of atoms finds confirmation in the recent re- 
searches on radium and other radio-active substances. See lectures by Sir 
William Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge, respectively, entitled, Modern Fiews on 
Matter, the former published in Science, 1903, vol. xvii, p. 993, the latter issued 
in pamphlet form by the Clarendon Press. f John, v, 17. 

318 



Universe Probably Eternal 

solitude of God. The notion of the mutual compla- 
cency of the persons of the Trinity, in which some 
theologians have sought relief, is not much more satis- 
factory than that of divine self-contemplation, to say 
nothing of the fact that it involves a conception of the 
Trinity which verges towards tritheism. And the 
notion that eternal ages were spent in excogitating the 
best possible plan for a created universe contradicts 
any intelligent conception of divine omniscience and 
perfection,* 

But is not the conception of God as eternally im- 
manent in an eternal universe pantheism? Yes, and 
no. Certainly it is a phase of pantheism. But the sys- 
tem of doctrine usually called pantheism denies per- 
sonality, free will, morality, alike in man and in God. 
In the line of thought which we have followed, on 
the contrary, we have started with the personality of 
man, and at every stage have firmly held to the per- 
sonality of God. Thus w^e find the ground of all ex- 
istence in the will of a personal God. Matter affects 
our senses only as it is a vehicle of force. Nay, the 
question recurs again and again to students both of 
physics and of metaphysics whether matter is anything 
but force. The supreme truth of theistic philosophy 
to which such a query points, is that matter has no 
existence apart from the continuous energy of divine 
will, ''upholding all things by the word of his power." 
The existence of the material universe is thus an eter- 
nal act of creation. 

* Science, 1899, vol. x, p. 950. See also Bowne, Philosophy 0/ Theism, p. 189. 



The Personality of God 

In the concluding chapter of his "Mental Physiol- 
ogy," entitled "Mind and Will in Nature/' William 
B. Carpenter has wisely remarked that the conception 
of theism lies between the limits of pantheism and 
anthropomorphism. The cosmic uniformities which are 
the theme of science suggest the idea of a power whose 
nature is eternal law immanent in the universe. But the 
experiences of human life suggest to us, as truly as to 
our savage ancestors, the idea of volition, intelli- 
gence, morality, in God. Each of the two conceptions 
represents a phase of the truth. The mysterious Power 
"dwelling in the light which no man can approach un- 
to, whom no man hath seen nor can see," can be repre- 
sented in human language only symbolically. Strictly 
speaking, the doctrine of the personality of God can 
be true only in a symbolic sense. We can mean noth- 
ing more than that human personality affords the fittest 
symbol to represent some phase of the incomprehen- 
sible nature of Deity. The language of pantheism 
and that of anthropomorphism are alike symbolic. 
Whether we call God the Soul of the universe or 
the Heavenly Father, we are talking only in sym- 
bols. Indeed, so completely are the resources of 
language limited by human experience, pantheism 
can hardly express itself without anthropomorphic 
symbols. The very phrase, "Soul of the universe," 
is anthropomorphic. 

Anthropomorphic symbols, then, are necessary to 
religion. Rightly understood, they do not contradict 
the truest philosophy. The Christian doctrine of the 

320 



Law in Nature 

Incarnation is the very glorification of anthropomor- 
phism. Of all the great reconciliations wrought out 
by the revelation of God in Christ, not the least is the 
reconciliation between the human intellect and the hu- 
man heart, — between science and faith, — between the 
philosophy that demands a God absolute, passionless, 
and changeless, and the religious affection that de- 
mands a human sympathy and love to which it can re- 
spond. We may with the pantheist believe in a God 
eternally immanent in an eternal universe, and yet, 
with a faith as simple as if we had never heard of 
evolution or conservation of energy, as simple as if 
we were living still amid the sweet legends of the 
childhood of the race, when Jehovah walked "in the 
garden in the cool of the day,"* we may take into our 
lives the blessedness of divine companionship offered 
in the words of Jesus to his disciples, "He that hath 
seen me, hath seen the Father. "f 

"O Love! O Life! our faith and sight 

Thy presence maketh one. 
As through transfigured clouds of white 

We trace the noonday sun, 
So, to our mortal eyes subdued, 

Flesh-veiled, but not concealed, 
We know in thee the fatherhood 

And heart of God revealed." 

Law in Nature 

We have thus come to recognize as a probability 
the existence of a personal God immanent in nature — 

* Genesis, iii, 8. t John, xiv, 9. 

321 



Law in Nature 

a God transcending all human thoug-ht, yet capable 
of being in some sense defined between the limits of 
anthropomorphism and pantheism. There are some 
special topics which demand our consideration, as 
phases of the general subject of the relation of God to 
the universe. These special topics are Providence, 
Prayer, Miracle. But, before we discuss these topics, 
it seems desirable to enter upon a digression for the 
purpose of reaching as clear a notion as possible of 
the exact meaning of law in nature, and of the degree 
of probability of those propositions which are com- 
monly stated as laws of nature. This digression is 
necessary because of the prevalence of erroneous no- 
tions of natural law. Natural law has been the fetish 
of modern thought, worshiped with most superstitious 
devotion by those who have least understanding of its 
real significance. Many people imagine that the cause 
of a phenomenon is completely explained by reference 
to natural law — that natural law is itself efficient cause. 
Many people imagine, likewise, when they see a propo- 
sition labeled as a law of nature, that that proposition 
is invested with an infallible certainty. It is therefore 
worth while for us to consider the nature and method 
of scientific thought, so that we may learn the true 
significance of natural law. 

Science has nothing to do with entities. The scien- 
tist whose life is devoted to the investigation of the 
properties of matter, cares not, in so far as he is purely 
a scientist, whether matter has any objective existence 
or not. For him matter is simply the "possibility of 

.322 



Natural Law a Fetish 

sensation." Whether matter is anything more than 
that, and, if so, what, are questions in regard to which 
scientific men, in so far as they are only scientific men, 
are the most utterly indifferent of Gallios. Science, 
again, has nothing to do with efficient causes. What 
we call physical forces are simply symbols, like the 
X, y, and z of the mathematician, which help us to 
express the relations between phenomena. When we 
speak of the force of gravitation, we mean nothing 
more than that projectiles, planets, and other bodies 
do move as they would move if all bodies were acted 
upon by a tendency to approach each other, varying in 
intensity directly as the masses and inversely as the 
squares of the distances. As to the nature of that tend- 
ency, the law of gravitation gives us no account what- 
ever. If, in our speculation, we go a step farther, and 
propose to resolve the force of gravitation into the 
impact of moving particles of ether, we still know not, 
and do not pretend to know, what sets the ether par- 
ticles in motion. The secondary causes with which 
scientific men deal are simply uniformities of sequence. 
As science knows nothing of efficient causes, so it 
utterly ignores final causes. The universe may have 
been made by an intelligent Creator; and, if so, he 
undoubtedly had some purpose in making it. But 
whether there was such a Creator, whether he had a 
purpose, and, if so, what the purpose was, are all 
questions with which science has nothing whatever to 
do. Science, again, knows nothing of primal origin 
or ultimate destiny. All that concerns the scientist, 

323 



Law in Nature 

purely as a scientist, is that the system of uniform 
sequences which we call nature appears to extend back- 
ward for an indefinite distance into the past, and seems 
likely to extend forward for an indefinite distance into 
the future. Whether that indefinite duration is in- 
finite, is a question which science does not pretend 
to decide. 

The work of science is to accumulate an increasing 
store of observations of physical phenomena, and by 
comparison and induction to detect the laws of those 
phenomena — i. e., the relations of coexistence or of 
succession which exist between them. And such laws, 
in addition to the facts themselves, comprise the whole 
content of science. In the progress of man's knowl- 
edge of the external world, those phenomena first en- 
gage attention which can be observed without any 
special appliances, and those relations are first per- 
ceived which are most simple and obvious. Subse- 
quently instruments of precision enable observations 
and measurements to be more accurately made. Ob- 
jects too minute or too distant to be seen by the naked 
eye are magnified. Ingenious experimentation devises 
artificial conditions under which the relation or lack 
of relation between any two phenomena can be de- 
tected. Improved mathematical analysis enables the 
mind to become cognizant of relations which are too 
intricate to be otherwise perceived. The mind stored 
with multitudes of facts acquires an almost intuitive 
power to penetrate into the secrets of nature, and dis- 
cern far-reaching relations between phenomena appar- 

324 



Relations of Coexistence or Succession 

ently utterly unconnected. But, in the very highest 
stages of scientific investigation, the work is still abso- 
lutely nothing but the accumulation of knowledge of 
phenomena, and the detection of relations of coexist- 
ence and of sequence between phenomena. 

When the savage has learned to predict from expe- 
rience the continued succession of day and night, the 
phases of the moon, and the changes of seasons, he 
has already developed the conception of natural law — 
i. e., of a determinate order of sequence in phenom- 
ena. When it is perceived that these obvious and 
familiar phenomena, in connection with infrequent and 
startling phenomena, such as eclipses, and phenomena 
only observable by the aid of the telescope, such as 
the phases of Venus, can all be included and formu- 
lated under the conception of a number of spheroidal 
bodies moving in elliptical orbits in accordance with 
the principle of gravitation, a much more comprehen- 
si^'e appreciation of the scope of natural law has been 
attained. W^hen it is perceived that the same system 
of mutual attractions between bodies which has been 
assumed in order to formulate the actual movements 
of the planets, may account for the evolution of the 
planets from a nebula, and that thus a vast number of 
apparently unconnected phenomena — such as the high 
temperature of the sun, the cold and dead volcanic 
surface of the moon, the bright-lined spectrum of cer- 
tain nebulae, the internal heat of the earth, the wrink- 
ling of the earth's crust into mountain chains — may 
all be brought into harmonious relationship, the con- 

3^5 



Law in Nature 

ception of the scope of natural law has been still fur- 
ther widened. But, when the astronomer plans years 
beforehand an expedition to the coast of Africa, to be 
in readiness to observe a solar eclipse at a precise point 
of time, or when the physicist tells us how many mil- 
lion years ago the surface of the earth became suffi- 
ciently cool to be habitable, he has only traveled some 
steps farther along the same road on which his sav- 
age ancestor had already entered, when that ancestor, 
warned by the diminishing altitude of the sun, turned 
back from hunting the mammoth with his stone spears 
and arrows, to gain the shelter of his cave dwelling 
before nightfall. 

It is conceivable that a mind possessed of no facul- 
ties differing in kind from ours, and operating by the 
same sort of methods as those which have achieved 
the actual results of scientific investigation, might at- 
tain to so complete a knowledge of the relations of 
phenomena, as, by knowing simply the relative posi- 
tions of the atoms in the primal nebula, to be able to 
predict the whole history of the solar system, — the 
magnitudes, distances, and orbits of future planets; 
the physiographic features of every orb — continents, 
oceans, mountains, rivers ; the direction of every wind, 
and the number of drops in every shower ; the precise 
moment at which life would animate a globe once life- 
less; the character, number, and relations of every 
specific form of life; the number of leaves on every 
tree, and the exact position of every leaf.* It is con- 

* Actions of man and other free a'::ents would not be thus predictable. 



Nature a Cosmos, not a Chaos 

ceivable that the path to be traversed by every atom, 
and the changes in which it would take a share, might 
be expressed in a mathematical formula of immense 
complexity, as truly as the orbit of a planet may be 
formulated. But, in the utmost extension of science 
which we can imagine, its entire content is still phe- 
nomena and laws — laws expressive of the relations of 
coexistence and sequence of phenomena. 

All this sort of work involves, of course, one postu- 
late of tremendous significance: viz., that nature is a 
system — a cosmos, not a chaos; and that, therefore, 
relations of coexistence and sequence observed within 
the limits of our experience may be expected to hold 
good beyond those limits. This postulate is as unde- 
monstrable as the belief in personal identity, trust- 
worthiness of memory, or moral responsibility, or any 
other necessary belief. But, as in the case of other 
necessary beliefs, its undemonstrability is no reason 
why it should not be accepted as the basis of our think- 
ing. It is well, however, to notice that the postulate is 
implied in the common expectation of sunrise and sun- 
set as truly as in the most comprehensive generaliza- 
tions of science. 

The content of science is, then, phenomena and laws ; 
and those laws are simply formulas expressing rela- 
tions of coexistence or succession of phenomena. But 
a little further illustration of the conception of natural 
law may be instructive. A good illustration of the 
scientific idea of law is furnished by mathematical 
series. A mathematical series is a succession of terms, 

327 



Law in Nature 

each one of which is derived from one or more of the 
preceding, in accordance with some law. Knowing a 
sufficient number of terms, we can discover the law of 
the series ; knowing the law of the series, we can com- 
pute any term. A still more instructive illustration may 
be found in the geometrical conception of curves. A 
curve is conceived as being generated by a point which 
moves always in accordance with some law. That 
law, mathematically formulated, constitutes the equa- 
tion of the curve. If a number of points of the curve 
are given, we can infer the law of the curve; if we 
know the law, we can predict any number of points, 
tracing the curve, it may be, from minus infinity to 
plus infinity. 

The scientific conception of nature is that every 
group of related phenomena forms such a series — 
such a curve. Knowing by observation a certain num- 
ber of terms of the series, or points of the curve — that 
is, a certain number of phenomena, — we make a guess, 
or, in technical language, an hypothesis, as to the law. 
By means of that hypothetical law, we predict other 
terms of the series, or points of the curve — that is, 
other phenomena which hitherto have been unobserved, 
or whose relation to the subject in question has been 
unrecognized. So far as opportunity may Qffer, the 
predictions are compared with the results of observa- 
tion. So long as prediction and observation agree ex- 
actly or approximately, it is assumed to be probable 
that our hypothesis is exactly or approximately true. 
If our hypothetical law departs widely from the truth, 

328 



Mathematical Illustrations 

the departure will be shown, sooner or later, by a wide 
discrepancy between prediction and observation. 

What I have said thus in the abstract finds a typical 
concrete illustration in Kepler's classical discovery of 
the character of the planetary orbits. Every known 
and recorded position of a planet was a point in a 
curve; and the contemplation of those known points 
suggested to the fertile imagination of Kepler hypothe- 
sis after hypothesis in regard to the law of the curve. 
At last the hypothesis was reached that the planetary 
orbits were ellipses with the sun in the focus; and 
with that hypothesis all observations were found to 
coincide. The conclusion thus established has never 
been questioned. 

These illustrations, I believe, correctly set forth the 
general character of scientific research. The collection 
of a greater or less number of observations; the in- 
vention of an hypothesis suggested by those observa- 
tions; the prediction, on the basis of that hypothesis, 
of phenomena hitherto unobserved or unregarded ; the 
comparison of prediction with observation, and the 
consequent verification or refutation of the hypothe- 
sis — these are the ordinary steps in any scientific 
investigation. 

If we carry out our geometrical illustration some- 
what further in detail, it will yield us some interesting 
suggestions in regard to the conditions governing the 
relative degree of probability of different scientific be- 
liefs. Let us suppose, then, that we are endeavoring 
to trace the whole course of a curve of which certain 

329 



Law in Nature 

points are given. It is obvious, in the first place, that, 
the more numerous are the given points, the more 
Hkely shall we be to form a true hypothesis in regard 
to the law of the curve. Other things being equal, the 
probability of our scientific hypotheses will be in direct 
ratio to the extent of our knowledge of the phenomena 
concerned. 

Again, if we have a certain number of points of 
the curve given, it is evident that there will be much 
less liability of considerable error in conjecturing those 
portions of the curve which are intermediate between 
some of the known points, than in conjecturing those 
portions of the curve which lie outside the limits of 
the known points. Accordingly, if our observations 
of a series of phenomena are distributed over a given 
range in respect to time, space, temperature, pressure, 
or any other variable condition, we shall be much more 
likely to make predictions exactly or approximately 
correct in regard to phenomena lying within the limits 
of the extreme observations already made, than in re- 
gard to those which lie beyond those limits. In other 
words, interpolation is a much safer process than that 
which has been called, in barbarous defiance of ety- 
mology, by the name of extrapolation. Yet it must 
always be remembered that there is an uncertainty in 
interpolation, even between points which are very close 
together. Unless the equation of a curve is exactly 
known, we can never be sure that the curvature is uni- 
form between any two points, however near to each 
other those points may be. There may be, for aught 

33^ 



Interpolation and Extrapolation 

we know, a cusp or a point of inflection between those 
two points. The man who, knowing the specific grav- 
ity of water at 32° and at 46° Fahrenheit, should infer 
that the specific gravity of water at 39*^ would be the 
mean of those two, would be of course in error. A 
possibility of like error must exist in all cases of 
interpolation. 

Again, if we endeavor to prolong our curve beyond 
the limits of the farthest point which is given, it is 
evident that the probability of considerable error must 
increase with each unit of distance through which we 
proceed. Our processes of extrapolation become more 
and more uncertain as we proceed farther and farther 
beyond those limits, in time, space, temperature, pres- 
sure, or other variable condition, within which our 
observations have been made. The position of the 
planets may be calculated with great accuracy some 
centuries in advance ; but he would be a very rash man 
who would attempt to make an Ephemeris for the year 
of our Lord 1,000,000,000. A man who knew the 
behavior of water at temperatures varying from 50° 
to 150° Fahrenheit could, on the basis of his observa- 
tions, draw very just conclusions in regard to the be- 
havior of water at temperatures somewhat below 50° 
and somewhat above 150°; but, if he attempted to 
carry his processes of extrapolation beyond the limits 
of 32 "" on the one hand and 212° on the other, he 
would undoubtedly be completely in error in his results. 
We know by experiment how the fusion point is af- 
fected by moderate increase of pressure in the case of 

331 



Law in Nature 

rather fusible bodies, as sulphur and spermaceti ; but 
how the fusion point of the materials in the interior 
of the globe may be affected by the enormous pressure 
of four thousand miles of rock, is a different question. 
Geology, reasoning backward from the present to the 
past, can reconstruct with considerable accuracy the 
geographical, climatic, and other conditions of Qua- 
ternary and Tertiary times ; but its pictures grow more 
and more indistinct as the vision is prolonged farther 
backward into the past, and the condition of the earth 
in Archaean time is very largely unknown. The biol- 
ogist succeeds very well in tracing some of the later 
steps of the evolution of organic forms; but the ori- 
gin of the various sub-kingdoms whose representatives 
swarmed in the Cambrian seas is shrouded in mystery ; 
and we have scarcely a conjecture to relieve our abso- 
lute ignorance in regard to the origin of the earliest 
forms of life. The degree of probability of our con- 
clusions diminishes rapidly, as those conclusions tran- 
scend the limits of observation. 

Again, a curve of one of the higher degrees often 
consists of two or more branches apparently entirely 
distinct from each other ; and it may happen that one 
of these branches has In Its general form a close re- 
semblance to a complete curve of lower degree. Thus, 
the curve which Is represented by the equation, — 



ay = ±Vx{x—b)(x — c), 

has, for certain values of the constants, an oval branch 
whose form is very similar to that of an elHpse, and 

332 



Uncertainty of Scientific Conclusions 



an infinite parabolic branch. If we had given a num- 
ber of points of that oval branch, and no points of the 
other branch of the curve, our conjecture would natu- 
rally be that the curve was an ellipse; and, if the ob- 
served points did not exactly correspond with the equa- 
tion of the ellipse, we should probably suppose that the 
slight discrepancy was due simply to errors of measure- 

Y 



^ 




Fig. 14.— Curve represented by equation, ay — ±^ x{x — b\x — c). 

ment. We should, of course, be in error. The curve 
is not of the second degree, but of the third degree. 
No part of it is an ellipse. The resemblance of a part 
of it to an ellipse is only approximate. I believe that 
we must recognize the possibility of an analogous 
error in our scientific investigations. A law which 
appears to be thoroughly verified by the coincidence 
between prediction and observation may yet be true 



Law in Nature 

only approximately and within limits. It is possible, 
for instance, that the Newtonian law of gravitation 
may be only an approximation to the truth. It is pos- 
sible that the true law may be a vastly more complex 
one, which would include in a single formula not only 
the relations of sensible masses of matter at sensible 
distances, but also the relations of molecules and atoms 
at infinitesimal distances. 

Our geometrical illustration may afford us yet an- 
other instructive suggestion. If, in the equation which 
we have quoted, we make b equal to 0, the equation 
will reduce to the form, — 



aj/ = ±xVx — c\ 

and we shall then find, corresponding to the oval 
branch of the former curve, only a single point, as 
shown at 0, in Fig. 15. The curve will thus con- 
sist of an infinite parabolic branch and a single 
isolated point. In such a curve, there might be 
given a very large number of points distributed 
along the parabolic branch, and yet their contem- 
plation might afford us no suggestion of the isolated 
point that lies outside of that branch. There must 
be always an analogous possibility, in regard to those 
natural laws which seem to be most thoroughly 
verified, that there may be outlying, isolated phenom- 
ena, apparently entirely unrelated to the law, which 
would yet be included in a true statement of the law. 
Such outlying phenomena, analogous to isolated points 
in complex curves, would afford us, from the physical 

334 



Physical Explanation of Miracle 

side, a conception of miracles. From this point of 
view, we recognize that a miracle need not be regarded 
as a suspension or violation of law. On the other hand, 
the physical significance of a miracle would be, that 




Fig. 15. — Curve represented by equation, ay — ±x\/x — c. 

the true law of nature is more complex than our sup- 
posed law — that our supposed law is only true approxi- 
mately within limits ; and that the true law, in its full 
complexity, includes the apparently isolated phenom- 

335 



Law in Nature 

ena, as well as the phenomena which are apparently 
normal. It may be that the rising of Jesus from the 
dead was as truly natural as the failure of other men 
to rise. It is unnecessary to remark that the theolog- 
ical conception of miracle would require another ele- 
ment to be included in the definition; namely, coinci- 
dence in time and place between such an extraordinary 
event and some moral or religious revelation. The 
question of the probability or provability of miracle 
will be considered later.* All that concerns our pres- 
ent line of discussion is the recognition that a miracle 
must always and everywhere be among the physical 
possibilities. 

This long digression has perhaps enabled us more 
clearly to recognize the significance of natural law. We 
have learned that a natural law is a statement of a 
relation of coexistence or succession in phenomena, 
reached by induction from a limited and partial expe- 
rience, sometimes attaining a very high degree of 
probability, but never able to reach the standard of 
certainty. We have learned that law in nature has 
absolutely no shadow of causal significance. There are 
two and only two opinions possible in regard to the 
cause of those uniform relations of coexistence and 
succession which science brings to light. The cause is 
to be found either in blind, self-acting forces inherent 
in matter, or in the will of an immanent Intelligence. 
The former view is held by all atheists, most deists, 
and many Christians. The atheist of course holds 

* Page 351. 



Providence 

that matter is eternal, and that its forces are not only 
self-acting but self-existent. Deists have generally 
believed that the material universe was created by a 
Deity who in the act of creation endowed matter with 
its wondrous potencies. Many Christians have held 
the same view, modified only by the doctrine of occa- 
sional divine interposition. While the ordinary affairs 
of the universe are carried on by the self-acting 
forces with which matter has been endowed, God is 
supposed occasionally to alter the action of the ma- 
chinery by the interposition of his personal activity. 
These interpositions are called special providences or 
miracles, according to the degree in which the event 
is startling and unexpected. The form of conflict of 
science and religion to which this doctrine of divine 
interposition inevitably leads has been already suffi- 
ciently discussed. God is everywhere or nowhere in 
the universe. He does everything or nothing. All 
philosophic theists must hold that the cause of the uni- 
formities of nature is to be found in the will of an 
immanent Intelli-gence, whose plans are changeless be- 
cause his wisdom is perfect from all eternity. Not an 
atom of matter has ever changed its position but in 
obedience to his will. 

Providence 

Tlie doctrine of Providence is an obvious corollary 
of the doctrine of immanent intelligence in the uni- 
verse. For, if all events in nature obey the will of in- 
telligent personality, then all events in nature are 



Providence 

purposeful. Nor are we altogether ignorant of the 
purposes which dominate the universe. Nature itself 
reveals in some degree the divine benevolence. In the 
relation of the universe to human conduct there is 
some evidence of "a. power which makes for righteous- 
ness." But Christianity brings clearer revelation of 
the supreme moral purpose of the divine administra- 
tion. The God revealed in Christ Jesus is a God whose 
supreme end is holiness. The kingdoms of nature are 
tributary to the kingdom of grace. Thus we recog- 
nize that providence is not an exceptional interference 
with the course of nature. The course of nature is 
itself providence. Natural law and providence are not, 
as men have fancied, conceptions contradictory and 
mutually exclusive. Law and providence are only two 
phases of the same truth, like the two sides of the 
fabled gold and silver shield. The very etymology of 
the word should have taught us that pro-vidence is not 
afterthought, but forethought — foreseeing, and con- 
sequent foreordaining : not the tinkering of a machine 
so clumsily constructed that its working fails to accom- 
plish its designer's purpose — the shoving backward or 
forward of the hands of a clock which fails to keep 
good time ; but the orderly working of infinite wisdom 
whose eternal plans need no modification because per- 
fect always. 

And, when we come thus to think of all nature as 
a system designed to carry out the purposes of God's 
providence, we need not trouble ourselves much about 
the foolish question, whether God's providence is spe- 

338 



Providence General and Special 

cial or only general — whether it extends to all details 
of individual experience or only to the general course 
of things. The question could never have been raised 
but by men whose conception of God was controlled 
by that lower type of anthropomorphism which at- 
tributes to God human limitations and imperfections. 
Our finite intelligence cannot think of many things at 
a time. When we think of a general plan, we lose 
sight of details; when we concentrate our attention on 
details, we lose sight of generalizations. Attributing 
the same psychological limitations to the Deity, we have 
imagined that he could not consider our personal expe- 
riences while he was evolving into planets some far-off 
nebula ; and that, if he condescended to sympathize with 
some little human sorrow, he would forget to keep 
Uranus and Neptune in their orbits. The thought only 
needs to be distinctly formulated for its absurdity and 
impiety to be manifest. If we believe in a God at all, 
we can believe in a God who is competent to manage 
the universe in gross and in detail. To the Infinite 
Intelligence, all and each are alike present. God does 
not forget details in generalizations, nor lose generali- 
zations in details. As nothing is too great for his 
power, nothing is too small for his attention. He 
guides the flakes of star-dust slowly gathering into 
\vorlds ; he marks no less the fall of the sparrow, and 
numbers the hairs of our heads. No meteor, no ani- 
malcule, no atom escapes the infinite watchfulness of 
omniscience, or is forgotten by the all-embracing wis- 
dom of providence. 

339 



Providence 

Nor shall we in our thought limit the idea of provi- 
dence to events that seem to us desirable. Many good 
people attribute prosperity to providence, adversity to 
natural law. If they have recovered from sickness, the 
recovery was providential. If their friends have died, 
death came by natural law. So they attempt to draw 
a line between the things which God does himself, and 
the things that occur in obedience to the laws of na- 
ture ; or, as sometimes expressed, the things that God 
purposes, and those that he only permits. God does 
not shirk the responsibility of the universe. There is 
no occasion for us to try to prove an alibi for the Om- 
nipresent. A far nobler and truer faith was that of 
the Hebrew prophet who declared in the name of Je- 
hovah, ''I form the light, and create darkness ; I make 
peace, and create evil ; I the Lord do all these things."* 
Darkness and death are as truly providential as light 
and life. 

There is indeed one tremendous exception to the 
scope of providence. If we believe in free will, we 
must recognize that for our own sins we are ourselves 
responsible. Providence enters not into the sacred 
sphere of human personality. But our responsibility 
and control are limited to the subjective sphere of our 
own volition. The objective results of our actions 
enter into the realm of providence, as truly as do the 
movements of inanimate nature. A reckless young 
clerk in India became desperate, and twice put a pistol 
to his head and pulled the trigger. Twice the pistol 

* Isaiah, xlv, 7. 



Prayer 

missed fire; and Give lived to found the English em- 
pire in the East, and to annex those rich territories to 
the domain of civilization. The guilt of suicide be- 
longed to the young man. It was God's providence 
that overruled the sinful purpose, and spared the life 
for great achievement. No crime can be consum- 
mated — no sinful purpose can attain objective fulfill- 
ment, — unless the result contributes to the advance- 
ment of the eternal plans of God. ''Surely the wrath 
of man shall praise thee : the remainder of wrath shalt 
thou restrain."* We are bound then to recognize as 
providential those experiences that come to us as the 
result of the follies and sins of others or of ourselves. 
Thus the philosophy of our age of science leads us 
back to the simple faith in God's presence and God's 
immediate activity in all life's experiences that is en- 
shrined in the Hebrew traditions of the infancy of 
the race. The whole earth becomes an Eden in which 
God walks and talks with every soul that is pure 
enough to receive the manifestation of his presence. 

"We lack but open eye and ear. 
To find the Orient's marvels here — 
The still small voice in autumn's hush, 
Yon maple wood the burning bush." 

Prayer 

The consideration of the doctrine of providence leads 
naturally to the consideration of prayer; for, in its 
broadest sense, prayer is simply the expression of our 

* Psalm Ixxvi, lo. 



Prayer 

faith in providence. Prayer, then, will be gross or re- 
fined, rational or irrational, according to the character 
of our faith in providence. In the grosser anthropomor- 
phic conceptions of God, he is supposed to be imperfect 
in knowledge, and therefore capable of change of pur- 
pose. He may be convinced by argument that the 
things he had intended to do are i-oi .he best, and may 
be led accordingly to change his plan; or he may be 
over-persuaded by persistent entreaty. With this low 
conception of the character of God was associated a 
correspondingly low idea of prayer. Prayer, in short, 
was simply teasing. Yet we may easily think too con- 
temptuously of the gross anthropomorphism of early 
faith, and of the superstitious prayers in which that 
faith expressed itself. ''It were better," said Lord 
Bacon, ''to have no opinion of God at all than such 
an opinion as is unworthy of him."* A monstrous 
falsehood, for finite thought of the Infinite must be 
unworthy. Better — far better — the grossest anthro- 
pomorphism, than atheism. Better the most supersti- 
tious prayers of those who "think that they shall be 
heard for their much speaking," than irreligion. Crude 
and gross as were those early faiths and the prayers 
which they prompted, they kept alive in the human 
soul the great truth of a Power above man which can 
yet sympathize with man. 

But, important and necessary as were these crude 
ideas of prayer in the history of religion, they could 
not be permanent. The advance of the human intellect 

* Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral, xvii. 



Superstitious Prayers 

in general, and especially the growth of scientific ideas 
of nature, brought their inevitable doom. We cannot 
believe to-day that, if God has purposed up to a cer- 
tain moment to do a particular thing, he will change 
his mind and decide to do something else in obedience 
to the dictation of our prayers. Such a notion would 
imply either that God's wisdom was so imperfect that 
our prayers could convince him of the desirability of 
a change of plan, or that his purpose was so weak that 
he could yield to our simple importunity. The man 
who believes that God will change his plans in obe- 
dience to his prayer, and still dares to pray, must be 
possessed of a sublime hardihood. If I could fancy 
that God was willing to abdicate the throne of the uni- 
verse in my behalf, I would not accept the tremendous 
responsibility. 

But there is a truer conception of prayer correlated 
with that conception of providence which we have 
reached in our previous discussion. We have seen 
that providence is not afterthought but forethought — 
foreseeing, and consequent foreordaining. Prayer 
and its answer are provided for in the eternal fore- 
knowledge of God. From all eternity God has fore- 
seen the life of every human being; not merely the 
outward life as it manifests itself to men, but in- 
ward spiritual life as revealed to him alone. From all 
eternity God has heard all words of prayer which his 
church has offered and will offer to the end of time. 
He has heard the unuttered thoughts of prayer which 
were audible to his ear alone. From all eternity God 

343 



Prayer 

has known what souls would be lifted up to him in 
filial trust, and what souls, forsaking the Father in 
pride and unbelief, would doom themselves to spiritual 
orphanage. Knowing thus the spiritual condition of 
every individual at every moment, God has formed 
the constitution of the universe so as to bring to his 
children the blessings which he deemed fit to bestow 
upon them. In this view, the answer to prayer is not 
an exceptional thing ; it is the very law of the universe. 
Answers to prayer come to us not contrary to law, but 
in harmony with law, and in the very course of the 
operation of law. 

In the relation of prayer to the laws of the moral 
universe, we recognize the ground of the omnipotence 
of prayer in a certain sphere of our life. For law in 
the moral universe is as real as in the physical uni- 
verse, and as real in the same sense. The order of 
coexistence and succession is as constant in the moral 
world as in the physical world. When we pray for 
forgiveness of sin, and for the grace which is needful 
for victory over temptation and for holy living, our 
prayer is itself, in the eternal system of moral law, 
the antecedent of which those blessings are the conse- 
quent. The state of mind which expresses itself in 
those prayers is the necessary condition for our recep- 
tion of those gifts of divine grace. In such prayers as 
these, we are warranted in the faith that the specific 
thing asked for will be granted. To doubt that such 
prayers will be answered Is to doubt the faithfulness of 
God. Such prayer, in the beautiful language of Doctor 

344 



Prayer as Related to Moral Law 

Bartol, is ''an address to the Throne, moved by the 
King himself." To such prayer may be apphed without 
hmitation the words of Jesus, ''Ask, and it shall be 
given you; seek, and ye shall find." By the omnipo- 
tent might of such prayer the mountain weight of 
guilt is cast into the ocean depths of divine forgiveness. 

Outside of this supreme sphere of prayer, all peti- 
tions must be offered in the spirit of submission. Ex- 
pressly or by implication, the prayer, "Thy will be 
clone," must be the accompaniment of every request 
for specific gifts. The only faith which can reasonably 
be exercised is a general faith in the providential wis- 
dom and love of God. "He that cometh to God, must 
believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them 
that diligently seek him."* 

An interesting question that demands attention is, 
how is the form of prayer affected by the increasing 
knowledge of the system of natural law? We have 
already seen that the propositions which we formulate 
under the name of laws of nature are of varying de- 
grees of probability, and that none of them can attain 
to absolute certainty. Yet there are many classes of 
phenomena whose laws have been ascertained with 
so near an approach to certainty that we can predict 
without any consciousness of doubt that a certain event 
will or will not come to pass. Is it possible for us to 
pray for an event whose occurrence or non-occurrence 
we can thus confidently predict? I believe that the 
common sense of the Christian Church practically con- 

* Hebrews, xi, 6. 

345 



Prayer 

fesses the impossibility of petitions for such events. I 
do not believe that any man in this age and nation — 
at least any man of sound mind and of education — 
can pray that the day may be twenty-five hours long, 
that a heavy body which is left unsuJDported may be 
poised in air above our heads, that an amputated limb 
may be replaced by a new growth, or that a dead man 
may be recovered to life. Yet these events are no 
more truly governed by law than are events for which 
most Christians are accustomed to pray. Probably 
most Christians pray at times for changes of weather, 
and all or nearly all Christians pray for the recovery 
of themselves or of their friends in sickness. Yet 
meteorological changes and disease and health are as 
truly law-governed as the phenomena connected with 
gravitation. The difference is simply that in one class 
of cases we do, and in the other class we do not, have 
such a knowledge of the law as enables us to predict 
the event. The things which we cannot predict we 
can pray for. The things which we can predict we 
cannot pray for. 

Thus we are led to a conclusion which seems offen- 
sive to many good people: namely, that the advance 
of the knowledge of nature narrows the sphere of 
prayer. That the advance of knowledge in the past 
has narrowed the sphere of prayer, in the sense of 
specific petition, is simply a matter of history. There 
was a time when, in the gathering darkness of an 
eclipse, men could pray that the shadow might dis- 
appear, and the blessed sunlight be given to them 

34^ 



Prayer as Related to Physical Law 

again. We cannot offer such prayers now, for we 
feel sure that the prayers of the whole church mili- 
tant would not shorten the duration of an eclipse a 
thousandth part of a second. Our children's children 
will probably be as incapable of praying for sunshine 
and rain as we are of praying that an eclipse may be 
arrested. 

Yet there is a broader, higher view of prayer, in 
which it is seen that the sphere of prayer can never 
be narrowed by our advance in knowledge. Prayer 
is not merely specific petition. Prayer, in its broader 
and higher sense, is the communion of the human soul 
with God. It is the response of filial love and trust 
to the truth of God's fatherly providence. In the 
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns us against a 
low, heathenish conception of prayer — the notion that 
prayer is essentially teasing, and that men are to "be 
heard for their much speaking." He warns us against 
the idea that we are giving information to God, or 
reminding him of things which he is in danger of 
forgetting: — "Your Father knoweth what things ye 
have need of before ye ask him." Thus he seeks to 
lead us away from the lower to the higher idea of 
prayer; from teasing to trusting; from petty, selfish 
petition to loving communion with him who is infinite 
in wisdom and love. Then he gives us a form of 
prayer. How strongly that prayer contrasts with those 
we often ofTer! How little of self, how little of spe- 
cific petition, how little of telling God what we think 
we want, how much of loyal submission and filial 

347 



Prayer 

trust ! ''Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. 
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." And 
the prayer is half done before the thought of self 
has entered. Then the whole range of temporal in- 
terests is disposed of in the single petition, ''Give us 
this day our daily bread" — a petition expressive rather 
of faith in God's providing, than of a disposition to 
direct that providing according to our own notions. 
According to the narrative in Matthew's Gospel, our 
Saviour prayed in Gethsemane, "If it be possible, let 
this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, 
but as thou wilt." And again he prayed, "O my 
Father ! if this cup may not pass away from me, except 
I drink it, thy will be done." Was the latter prayer 
less truly a prayer than the former? Was it not the 
nobler prayer, revealing, as it did, that the weakness 
of the flesh was conquered, and the momentary vacilla- 
tion of purpose was ended? "He spake a parable," 
we are told, "to this end, that men ought always to 
pray and not to faint.""'' This precept, "always to 
pray and not to faint," or that of Paul, to "pray with- 
out ceasing,"!* certainly does not mean the perpetual 
dinning of specific petitions into the ear of God: it 
means, rather, a spirit of filial trust and abiding com- 
munion with God. Prayer is thus conceived as being 
not so much a specific act as an habitual state of 
mind — a continuous recognition of God in all the ex- 
periences and in all the activities of life. He who 
makes some near approach to this ideal of prayer, 

*Luke, xviii, i. -f I Thess., v, 17. 

348 



Pray without Ceasing 

will have no occasion to lament the limitation of the 
sphere of prayer, in that he can no longer ask for 
some specific things for which he or his ancestors 
might once have prayed. For him the sphere of 
prayer will be coextensive with human life, and the 
sphere of answer to prayer will be coextensive with 
the physical and moral universe. He can sing most 
truly, 

"In every joy that crowns my days, 

In every pain I bear, 
My heart shall find delight in praise, 

Or seek relief in prayer." 

And for him, all things will 'Svork together for good."* 
He will "be in league with the stones of the field ; and 
the beasts of the field shall be at peace with" him.f 
"The stars in their courses" will fight against his foes. 
Amid all the vicissitudes of temporal prosperity and 
adversity, his serene and triumphant faith may express 
itself in the words of the Psalmist : — "The Lord is 
my shepherd ; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie 
down in green pastures : he leadeth me beside the 
still waters. He restoreth my soul." 

In the future as in the past, advancing knowledge 
and deepening experience must change the form of 
prayer ; but, in every stage of intellectual and moral 
development, that form of prayer is most fitting 
which is most natural and spontaneous. The value 
of prayer lies not in the consistency of its language 
with a high type of theistic philosophy, but in the 

* Romans, viii, 28. t Job, v, 23. 

349 



Prayer 

genuineness of its expression of filial trust in a 
Father's love. 

"The child that cries for soaring bird, 

For moon or radiant star, 
Is not rebuked with angry word, 

Though vain its longings are. 
If God is God, and God is love, 

And we his children are, 
He will not frown from heaven above, 

Though e'en we ask a star." 

Yes, let us ask for stars if we think we want them. We 
shall not get them, but we shall get what is better 
than stars. Poor babies as we are in our weakness 
and ignorance, we may still be the children of God, 
and may be blessed in his fatherly love. The child- 
hood of the individual and of the race, the childhood 
of intellectual and of spiritual life, will "besiege the 
throne of grace" with specific petitions for all sorts 
of absurd and impossible things. But, as knowledge 
grows from more to more, and more of reverence in 
us dwells, our prayers will more and more conform 
to the precept of the Master, "After this manner, 
therefore, pray ye: 'Our Father which art in heaven, 
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy 
will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.' " "After 
this manner" — not necessarily in these words (though 
the words may be fit to be the perpetual liturgy of 
the Church Universal), but rather in this spirit of trust 
and submission in the presence of infinite wisdom and 
perfect love. "Thy will be done," sounds now as a 

350 



Miracle 

faint, sweet accompaniment, almost drowned in the 
vociferousness of desire. Swelling into organ fullness, 

"Loud as many waters' noise, 
Sweet as harp's melodious voice," 

drowning into silence the tumult of selfish passion, it 
becomes the eternal music of heaven. 

Miracle 

The Christian religion claims to be authenticated 
by miracles. But there is one miracle which stands 
in a very different relation to Christian faith from 
any other miracle, and which may well claim special 
consideration. 

Other miracles served to authenticate a revelation. 
The resurrection of Jesus was itself an integral part 
of that revelation. There might have been more or 
fewer of those other miracles, and our general con- 
ception of the character and work of Jesus would have 
been still the same. If he had fed the multitudes with 
a few loaves once instead of twice, if he had raised a 
dead person to life once or twice instead of thrice, if 
any one or if some considerable number of the mir- 
acles recorded in the gospels had been left unrecorded, 
or if the record of some of them should be discredited 
as unauthentic, it would make no essential difference 
in our conception of the character and work of Jesus, 
or in the general system of Christian doctrine. But, 
if the record of the resurrection were lost or discred- 
ited, our whole conception of Christ and of Chris- 

351 



Miracle 

tianity would be radically changed. Something, in- 
deed, of the work of Jesus would be left if the world 
should lose its faith in his resurrection. 

"In the wreck of noble lives, 
Something immortal still survives." 

Whatever changes there may be in men's opinions of 
Christ and Christianity, human life will always be 
better for the ethical teaching of the Sermon on the 
Mount; human character will always be nobler for 
the example of sublime self-sacrifice on Calvary. But 
the residue which would be left if the world should 
lose its faith in the resurrection would not be historic 
Christianity. It was "J^sus and the resurrection" that 
Paul preached at Athens. The resurrection was the 
corner-stone on which the faith of the primitive Church 
was built. Whatever might remain if the resurrec- 
tion should cease to be believed, it would not be Chris- 
tianity. It would not be the faith that has made 
martyrs and missionaries — the faith that has trans- 
formed the world's history. 

The resurrection of Jesus may well claim special 
consideration, not only because it is the most impor- 
tant, but also because it is the best attested, of all mira- 
cles. Indeed, so greatly does the evidence of the resur- 
rection exceed that of every other alleged miracle, that 
our chief reason for believing in any other miracle as 
historic, is that the strong evidence for the resurrec- 
tion suffices to establish a probability that miracle is 
a part of the divine plan of revelation. In the thought 



Difficulty of Belief in Miracle 

of to-day, it is doubtful whether any other miracle is 
so strongly attested that it would be credible if it stood 
alone. The question of the credibility of miracle re- 
solves itself into the question of the credibility of the 
resurrection of Jesus. 

The fact cannot be overlooked that the question of 
the credibility of miracle is profoundly affected by 
that change of intellectual atmosphere which has taken 
place since the first century, and which was considered 
in the introductory chapter of this work. Then prodi- 
gies were readily believed on the slightest occasion 
and with the most meager evidence. The growth of 
science; the discovery of a vast body of laws of na- 
ture — gen-eralizations of experience — supported by a 
wealth of induction which raises probability almost to 
certainty; the strengthening conviction of the univer- 
sal reign of law in nature; — disincline men to yield 
credence to an allegation so remote from ordinary ex- 
perience as that of a resurrection from the dead. Ap- 
parently in utter unconsciousness of the difficulties 
wiiich the spirit of this age finds in the way of belief 
in a miraculous event, many of the teachers of Chris- 
tian evidences simply point to the presumably honest 
contemporary testimony to the fact of the resurrec- 
tion, and confidently declare that no fact in ancient 
history is so well attested. It is doubtless true that 
the weight of testimony which can be marshaled in 
behalf of the resurrection is greater than that on the 
strength of which most facts of ancient history are 
believed : but the truth of that proposition is by no 

353 



Miracle 

means sufficient to establish the credibihty of the 
resurrection. We can no more judge of the adequacy 
of testimony to estabHsh belief in any particular 
allegation, without regard to the character of the alle- 
gation, than we can decide whether a bridge is suffi- 
ciently strong, without considering whether it is to 
bear foot passengers or railway trains. 

It is indeed unnecessary to spend time in proving 
that a miracle is possible. From the discussion which 
has been already given of the meaning of natural law, 
it appears that every so-called law of nature is a gener- 
alization based upon limited experience and incomplete 
knowledge; that the probability of such generaliza- 
tions varies greatly in degree, but can never attain 
the standard of certainty; that those laws which seem 
most strongly supported may prove to be true only 
approximately or within limits ; that there must ever 
remain a possibility of the discovery of an isolated fact 
contradicting the supposed law of nature, and showing 
that the true law is more complex than had been sup- 
posed. That the sun will rise to-morrow at the time 
predicted by astronomers, is extremely probable, but 
not certain. It may fail to rise. So long as human 
knowledge falls short of omniscience, we cannot be 
warranted in pronouncing impossible a priori any alle- 
gation which involves no self-contradiction. As Hume 
has well said,* ''Whatever is intelligible and can be 
distinctly conceived, implies no contradiction, and can 

* An Enquiry concerning Human Understandings section 4 ; Sceptical 
Doubts concernittg the Operations of t/ie Understanding. Essays, Green 
and Grose's edition, vol. ii, p. 31. , 

354 



HuME^s Argument 

never be proved false by any demonstrative argument, 
or abstract reasoning a priori." At other times, un- 
fortunately, Hume used language inconsistent with 
this clear and sound statement. 

But the possibility of miracle is one thing ; the prob- 
ability of miracle is a very different thing. While no 
one of those generalizations of our experience which 
we call provisionally natural laws can reach the stand- 
ard of certainty, there are many of them which attain 
an extremely high degree of probability. Some of 
these generalizations rest on a collection of observa- 
tions so immense and so thoroughly analyzed that the 
occurrence of a new fact which will contradict the 
generalization, though not absolutely impossible, is 
enormously improbable. Here we reach the ground of 
Hume's famous argument against the credibility of 
miracles. Hume's position is substantially that a mir- 
acle is a priori so enormously improbable that the 
falsity of any supposable amount of human testimony 
is more probable than the truth of the alleged miracle. 
The sophistical form in which Hume stated his argu- 
ment has been justly criticized, and criticized by the 
agnostic Huxley,* as well as by Christian writers ; but 
the force of the argument depends, not on the sophis- 
tical form, but on the truth which it contains. That 
truth is, that the amount and quality of testimony nec- 
essary to establish belief in any allegation vary with 
the a priori probability or improbability of the allega- 
tion, and that accordingly there may be allegations so 

* David Hume, part ii, ch. vii. 

355 



Miracle 

enormously improbable that no supposable array of 
testimony would render them credible. 

Of this principle, Huxley has given a striking illus- 
tration.* "If a man tells me he saw a piebald horse 
in Piccadilly, I believe him without hesitation. The 
thing itself is likely enough, and there is no imag- 
inable motive for his deceiving me. But if the same 
person tells me he observed a zebra there, I might 
hesitate a little about accepting his testimony, unless 
I were well satisfied, not only as to his previous ac- 
quaintance with zebras, but as to his powers and oppor- 
tunities of observation in the present case. If, how- 
ever, my informant assured me that he beheld a centaur 
trotting down that famous thoroughfare, I should 
emphatically decline to credit his statement; and this 
even if he were the most saintly of men and ready 
to suffer martyrdom in support of his belief." Huxley 
goes on to say expressly, ''This hesitation about admit- 
ting the existence of such an animal as a centaur" 
"need not imply, and it does not, so far as I am con- 
cerned, any a priori hypothesis that a centaur is an 
impossible animal ; or that his existence, if he did exist, 
would violate the laws of nature. Indubitably, the or- 
ganization of a centaur presents a variety of practical 
difficulties to an anatomist and physiologist; and a 
good many of those generalizations of our present ex- 
perience which we are pleased to call laws of nature, 
would be upset by the appearance of such an animal, 
so that we should have to frame new laws to cover 

* David Hume, p. 132. 



Huxley's Illustration of the Centaur 

our extended experience. Every wise man will admit 
that the possibilities of nature are infinite, and include 
centaurs." 

Suppose all Roman historians for a century after 
the death of Nero agreed in the assertion that Nero 
rose from the dead. Would such agreement establish 
in our minds a belief in the truth of the allegation? 
I answer, without hesitation, "No." I believe that 
the majority of well-educated people would not even 
be brought to the point of seriously questioning 
whether the allegation might not be true. The sup- 
position of error in all the historians of the period, 
arising from some mistake or fraud on the part of 
those who first gave currency to the story, would seem 
immensely more probable than the supposition of the 
truth of the allegation. 

Why should we believe in the resurrection of Jesus 
on the evidence of testimony, when we can hardly con- 
ceive of any array of testimony which would convince 
us of the resurrection of Nero? The answer to this 
question may be given in two different forms. 

I. In so far as the character of Jesus is unique, and 
apparently superhuman, the a priori probability against 
the resurrection is diminished. If it is conceded that 
in various respects Jesus differs from all other men, 
it is thereby rendered more or less probable that he 
may differ from all other men in other respects. It 
is certainly true that the character of Jesus is unique. 
He seems to stand apart from mere men, like some 
mysterious visitor from a higher sphere. "Never man 

2>S7 



Miracle 

spake like this man." He bids the world, ''Take my 
yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and 
lowly in heart : and ye shall find rest unto your souls." 
What other lips could thus have put into a single sen- 
tence the profession of humility and the claim to su- 
premacy over mankind without producing an impres- 
sion of grotesque incongruity? On the lips of Jesus 
the two utterances blend in sweet and solemn harmony. 
Behold him in the days of the passion week and in 
the threefold trial on the morning of the crucifixion. 
How, with each accession of humiliation, he reveals 
more fully a serene and superhuman majesty! The 
lower he stoops, the higher he rises. 

With whom among the sons of men shall we com- 
pare him ? Shall it be with the saints of the Christian 
Church? The holiest of them loves best to confess 
that he only reflects some portion of the glory of Jesus, 
as the planets reflect the splendor of the sun. Shall 
we compare him with other founders of religions? 
Read the story of Buddha, as told so lovingly — too 
lovingly, perhaps, for strict and critical fidelity to 
truth — in Sir Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia." Read 
the beautiful story with loving sympathy, and thank 
God that "he left not himself without witness" among 
the teeming millions of the Orient, but raised up for 
them a teacher of righteousness. "But the glory of 
the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is 
another." "The Light of Asia" pales before "the 
Light of the World." Try to patch into one of the 
Gospels the story of Buddha stealing out from his 

358 



The Character of Jesus 

sumptuous palace, past the lovely sleeping forms of 
his troop of nautch girls, when the wail of human sor- 
row calls him forth to his great mission — try to patch 
into one of the Gospels that story, as told so sweetly 
in Arnold's poem, or, still worse, as told more repul- 
sively in the Indian original, '^' — and how wildly incon- 
gruous it would be! Among earth's saints and sages 
there is no peer for the Man of Nazareth. It is not 
incredible that he who was superhuman in life should 
have been superhuman in death. 

11. For an atheist, or for an agnostic whose type of 
agnosticism is practical atheism, assuming that there 
is no moral purpose in the government of the world, 
there can be no meaning in a miracle, and such an 
extraordinary event is as improbable at one time as 
at another. That indeed is exactly the assumption 
of Huxley in his illustration of the centaur already 
quoted. f If there was a centaur in the streets of Lon- 
don, he was there for no moral purpose. He was an 
isolated and meaningless wonder. But to him who 
believes, or even hopes, that the world is ruled by a 
God of moral attributes, it must appear more or less 
probable that such a God may choose to reveal him- 
self to his children, and may make the system of nature 
itself emphasize and attest that revelation. In pro- 
portion to the importance of the revelation which is 
to be made is the probability of some miraculous sign 

* Life of Buddha, by Asvag:hosha Bodhisattva, translated by Beal (MliUer, 
Sacred Books of the East, vol. xix), p. 54. 

t Fisher, The Grounds 0/ Theistic and Christian Beliefs revised edition, 
p. 171. 

359 



Miracle 

for its attestation. If the Power that rules the world 
is "a power which makes for righteousness," it can- 
not seem incredible or extremely improbable that the 
world's clock should have been so adjusted as to strike 
at an hour pregnant with moral destiny. When we 
consider that, but for the faith in the resurrection, 
Christianity would have been buried forever in the 
rock-hewn tomb in which the Master lay, and when 
we try to measure what Christianity, with its revela- 
tion of divine fatherhood, and human brotherhood, and 
redemption from sin, and life immortal, has been to 
mankind in these centuries of Christendom and Chris- 
tian civilization, and what it promises to be in the 
glory of a millennial future, we cannot deem it "a 
thing incredible" that, in that transcendent crisis of 
man's moral history, "God should raise the dead." The 
thought of this paragraph may be summed up in a 
striking sentence from Romanes' "Thoughts on Re- 
ligion" : — "The antecedent improbability against a 
miracle being wrought by a man without a moral ob- 
ject is apt to be confused with that of its being done 
by God with an adequate moral object. The former 
is im.measurably great ; the latter is only equal to that 
of the theory of theism, i. e., nil."'^ 

By such considerations as these the a priori improb- 
ability of a resurrection is so far neutralized that we 
are in a posture of mind to consider the testimony 
which can be cited in favor of the resurrection of Jesus. 
The resurrection of Jesus is not, as the resurrection of 

* op. c?'t.^ p. 191. 
360 



Early Dates of New Testament Documents 

Nero would be, an event so enormously improbable 
that scarcely any supposable testimony would suffice 
to render it credible. 

The historic record of the resurrection is contained 
in six of the books of the New Testament — the four 
Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the First Epistle 
to the Corinthians. The- last of these has a peculiar 
importance, as being both the earliest in date and the 
most unquestionable in authenticity. Skepticism itself 
does not doubt that the First Epistle to the Corinthians 
was written by the apostle Paul, and at a date not 
more than about a quarter of a century after the death 
of Christ — at a time, therefore, when the greater part 
of the more than five hundred brethren who claimed 
to have beheld the risen Lord were still living. The 
summary of the appearances of the risen Christ to the 
apostles, as contained in that epistle, is therefore con- 
clusive evidence that the faith in the resurrection was 
the faith of the first generation of Christians. It was 
not a myth that grew up slowly, when the original 
witnesses of the events of the life of Jesus had passed 
away, and the simple tradition which they left had come 
to be embellished by the imaginative additions of later 
generations. It was the faith of the disciples who 
were contemporary with Jesus. It must be freely con- 
ceded that there is not the same degree of certainty in 
regard to the date and authorship of the Gospels and 
the Acts as in regard to those -of the First Epistle to 
the Corinthians. Yet I believe it probable that the 
three Synoptical Gospels existed in substantially their 

361 



Miracle 

present shape before the year 70 of the Christian era, 
and that the Fourth Gospel is the authentic work of 
John, written in his old age, toward the close of the 
first century. It is worth noting that even those crit- 
ics who reject the traditional views in regard to the 
date and authorship of the Gospels, for the most part 
hold no longer to the extremely late dates assumed by 
many critics a few decades ago. It would be some- 
what generally conceded at the present time that all 
four of the Gospels are virtually, if not exactly, con- 
temporary records of the life and teaching of Jesus. 

We have, then, probably six contemporary docu- 
ments, written by five different writers, all belonging 
to the circle of the apostles and their immediate asso- 
ciates. The evidence of these records is in no wise 
weakened by the discrepancies between them. They 
are just such discrepancies as always exist between a 
number of honest but incomplete narratives of a series 
of transactions. To cavil at them is as malicious as 
it is foolish to attempt to harmonize them. The sub- 
stantially historic character of the narratives and their 
trustworthiness as regards the main facts may be rea- 
sonably maintained, even if it be conceded that there 
is ground for the suspicion that some details of the 
story (as, for instance, the angelic apparitions)* may 



* Furness has sug-gested, not without plausibility, that the "young man 
sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment " (Mark, xvi, 5), may 
have been no other than Jesus himself, indistinctly seen in the dimly lighted 
sepulcher, by the women, who as yet had no thought of the possibility of a 
resurrection. The Power of Spirit Matti/est in Jesus of Nazareth^ p. 68. It 
is a noteworthy fact, whatever its significance may be, that Peter and John 
saw no angels at the sepulcher. 



362 



Honesty of the Evangelists 

be unhistoric — the result either of some mistake or 
confusion on the part of the original witnesses or of 
some early corruption of the tradition. 

It is unnecessary to comment on the air of perfect 
simplicity and guilelessness pervading the gospels. A 
candid reader is continually impressed with the con- 
viction that the writers of those books fully believed 
what they wrote. The Fourth Gospel is probably the 
only record by an eye-witness of the events connected 
with the resurrection, since the First Gospel, in its 
present form, is pretty certainly not the work of an 
apostle, though it very probably ':ontains much mate- 
rial of which Matthew was actually the writer. In 
John's narrative we meet in richest abundance those 
little particulars which impress themselves upon the 
memory of an eye-witness, but which tend to lose their 
distinctness as a story is repeated by other persons. In 
the narrative of the visit of Peter and John to the 
tomb, we have such particulars as John's outrunning 
Peter, looking first into the open sepulcher, and seeing 
the linen clothes ; his timid or reverent hesitation to 
enter; Peter's impetuous rush into the sepulcher, fol- 
lowed by John; the napkin that had covered the 
head of Jesus, "not lying with the linen clothes, 
but wrapped together in a place by itself." There 
is an air of photographic fidelity rather than of 
artistic selection of details.. The very form of the 
narrative makes an almost Irresistible Impression that 
John Is describing that which he has actually 
seen and experienced. The art of a Defoe would 

363 



Miracle 

scarcely suffice so perfectly to ''forge the hand- 
writing of nature." 

The obvious honesty of all the narratives, and the 
circumstantial detail which marks John's Gospel as 
the work of an eye-witness, scarcely leave room for 
doubt that the sepulcher of Jesus was found unten- 
anted on the morning of the first day of the week. In 
some way the body of Jesus had been removed. That 
fact, of itself, is of no miraculous character ; and there 
is no reason, therefore, why, so far as that fact goes, 
the Gospel narratives should not be recognized as hav- 
ing the same degree of trustworthiness which belongs 
to other apparently honest narratives of unexpected, 
but not miraculous, events. The absence of a human 
body from the place in which it had been laid was a 
phenomenon which the disciples were certainly com- 
petent to observe. Assuming it to be substantially cer- 
tain that the sepulcher was found empty on the Easter 
morning, we may remark that the faith in the resur- 
rection derives some incidental confirmation from the 
impossibility of constructing any plausible hypothesis 
of the abduction of the body. It is difficult to imagine 
any motive which could have induced either friends or 
enemies of Jesus to attempt the removal and conceal- 
ment of the body, even had there been no serious diffi- 
culties in the way of the accomplishment of such a 
design. This consideration derives some additional 
importance from the fact that, within a few weeks 
after the alleged event, the resurrection of Jesus was 
publicly proclaimed, and believed by multitudes, in Je- 

3^4 



Institution of the Lord's Day 

rusalem — the very place where, if anywhere, evidence 
of the fact might have been forthcoming, if the body 
had been stolen from the grave. 

I have referred to the unquestionably early date of 
the First Epistle to the Corinthians as being important 
in proving that the faith in the resurrection was not 
slowly developed after the contemporaries of Jesus had 
passed away. That date is, however, by no means the 
earliest period to which we can trace back the belief in 
the resurrection. There are indications that, by an 
apparently spontaneous and instinctive movement, the 
celebration of the first day of the week, or the Lord's 
Day, as a distinctively Christian festival, was estab- 
lished at a very early period in the apostolic age. The 
common notion that the Lord's Day was a modification 
of the Jewish Sabbath, or that the date of the Sabbath 
was changed, is entirely mistaken. The very phrase 
now so frequent, ''Christian Sabbath," is not known 
to have been used by any writer before the twelfth 
century.* In the early church the two institutions were 
never confounded. Jewish Christians for a time ob- 
served both days. The tendency of some Gentile 
Christians to observe the Sabbath was explicitly re- 
buked by Saint Paul,f as a symptom of a lapse into 
Judaism. The Lord's Day was absolutely a new in- 
stitution. It was a joyous commemoration of that day 
which the Christian consciousness recognized as the 
birthday of the church. The institution of the Lord's 

* Hessey, Sunday {Bampion Lectures, i860), p. 90, 
t Gal., iv, 10; Col., ii, 16. 



Miracle 

Day is, therefore, a most eloquent witness to the faith 
of the first generation of Christians in the resurrection. 

But we need not depend on any document or insti- 
tution to show that the beHef in the resurrection goes 
back to the beginning of the history of the church. 
The very existence of the church is an unimpeachable 
testimony to the same effect. But for the faith in the 
resurrection, the church would have died with its Mas- 
ter and been buried in his tomb. ''We trusted," said 
the disciples on the way to Emmaus, "that it had been 
he which should have redeemed Israel." But that trust 
was in the past tense. The death and burial of Jesus 
utterly destroyed the crude and unintelligent faith in 
the Messiahship of Jesus which the disciples had cher- 
ished, and they had nothing to take its place. They 
were utterly disheartened; and, in the loss of their 
Master, the bond was broken which bound them to 
each other. What was it that transformed these heart- 
broken, aimless men, with no common interest but the 
memory of a dead hope, into a firmly united, cour- 
ageous band, ready to attempt at once the conquest of 
the world? It was the faith in the resurrection that 
wrought that transformation. The church itself is the 
monument of the event which produced that faith, and 
thereby gave the initiative to the course of Christian 
history. 

But what was that event? If Jesus did actually rise 
from the dead, and appear unto Cephas and the twelve 
and the five hundred brethren, then all else is clear. 
The one great mystery of the resurrection explains 

366 



Theory of Hallucination 

other mysteries. We have a sufficient cause for the 
transformation of character in the disciples and for 
all the subsequent course of history. But, if he did not 
rise from the dead, what was the event which happened 
on that Easter Day, and which created the faith in the 
resurrection P"^ 

The answer which, probably, is at present most com- 
monly given to this cjuestion, by those who deny the 
reality of the resurrection, is that the origin of the 
faith was in a vision or hallucination, which was ex- 
perienced at first by a few of the more imaginative of 
the disciples, by whom, gradually, a sympathetic delu- 
sion was induced in others. As this theory has been 
developed by Renan, the credit of originating the no- 
tion of the resurrection is given to Mary Magdalene.f 
The mental malady of which she had been healed had 
left her imagination in a peculiarly excitable condition. 
The faith which has regenerated humanity, accord- 
ingly, had its origin as a pathological symptom in the, 
brain of a half-crazy woman. Instead of being shocked 
at this conclusion, Renan seems to find in it something 
peculiarly sweet to his aesthetic sensibilities ; and, with 
that curious sentimentalism which gives to all his writ- 
ings an air of indifference to truth and of essential un- 

* I have not deemed it necessary to discuss the notion which formerly found 
some advocates, that Jesus had not died, and that his supposed resurrection 
was only a recovery from a swoon. The manifold difficulties to which this 
hypothesis is exposed have led to an almost unanimous rejection of it as incred- 
ible. Professor Huxley attempted to revive the hypothesis in a paper which 
he read before the Metaphysical Society, "in which he argued that there was 
no valid evidence of actual death having taken place." Life atid Letters^ 
vol. i, p. 342. The paper seems not to have been published. His position is 
interesting chiefly as indicating his recognition of the weakness of the hypoth- 
esis more commonly adopted by those who do not accept the resurrection as 
historic. t Life of Jesus, ch. xxvi. 



Miracle 

morality, he exclaims, "Divine power of love! sacred 
moments in which the passion of a hallucinated woman 
gives to the world a risen God!" 

The first suggestion of the resurrection came from 
Mary Magdalene; but others were destined soon to 
share the same delusion.* So contagious, indeed, was 
Mary's faith and enthusiasm that some of the disciples 
imagined they saw the risen Lord that same day in 
Jerusalem. But the visions became more frequent 
when, a few days later, the apostles returned to Galilee. 
They lingered around the beautiful lake, where every 
village and every hillside was linked by fond associa- 
tion in their minds w^ith the memory of Jesus, where 
the blue waters seemed still to mirror his serene face, 
and the very air seemed still pulsating with the music 
of his voice. As they lingered amid those scenes, their 
minds fell more and more under the spell of those fond 
memories, till one and another seemed to himself to 
see the loved form of the Master and to hear his voice. 
And the hallucination of some became the faith of all 
the disciples. 

But, if the appearance of the risen Lord was a delu- 
sion or hallucination, it was certainly a most peculiar 
one. The natural history of hallucinations has been 
extensively studied, and their laws are pretty well un- 
derstood. Somewhat of the history of this particular 
delusion, if it was one, we can gather from the New 
Testament narratives. The honesty of those narra- 
tives is unimpeachable. Even on the theory of hallu- 

* Renan, The Apostles^ ch. i-iii. 

368 



Hallucination Theory Criticized 

ci nation, we may assume that we have a substantially 
veracious, though uncritical, narrative of the subjective 
experiences of the disciples. So far as we can thus 
trace the history of this delusion, it seems to* have been 
of a very exceptional sort. 

A delusion is apt to be preceded by a state of 
strongly excited expectancy. The person sees what 
he has been made to believe he will see. But in this 
case there was no such expectation. The death of 
Jesus plunged the disciples into utter despair. What- 
ever he had said about his death and resurrection had 
been so completely at variance with all their prepos- 
sessions that it had made no impression on their stolid 
unbelief. When Mary found the sepulcher empty, she 
could only think that some one had taken away the 
body and laid it she knew not where.* The reports 
of the women to the apostles "seemed to them as idle 
tales, and they believed them not."f The mental at- 
titude of the disciples was the very opposite of that 
state of expectant attention in which hallucinations 
most frequently originate. 

A delusion most commonly affects only a single in- 
dividual. Shakespeare is psychologically correct in 
making Banquo's ghost invisible to the rest of the com- 
pany, though profoundly real to the guilty fears of 
Macbeth. But in this case the delusion affected simul- 
taneously considerable numbers of persons — in one in- 
stance over five hundred,! — including, doubtless, men 
of all varieties of temperament, hopeful and de- 

* John, XX, 13. t Luke, xxiv, 11. J I Cor., xv, 6. 



Miracle 

spondent, imaginative and prosaic. All saw the same 
blessed vision. In the cases in which delusions have 
become epidemic and affected considerable numbers 
of persons, they have generally had a history extend- 
ing over some months or years, in which they have 
gradually become prevalent and as gradually declined. 
In this case there was no such gradual development. 
The faith of the apostles, excepting Thomas, in the 
reality of the resurrection was established before the 
close of the Easter Day. The appearances reported 
are few in number, and all were comprised within the 
space of forty days. After that short period the risen 
Jesus vanishes forever. Whatever fantastic visions 
appeared to the imagination of more or less fanatical 
Christians, the risen Jesus walked the earth no more. 
The delusion vanished as suddenly as it came. The 
dream was dreamed out in forty days. 

A delusion generally affects a single sense — most 
commonly sight or hearing; and the delusion of sight 
is shown to be such by the failure of the tactual sensa- 
tions which would be experienced if the supposed ob- 
jective cause of the visual sensations were real. When 
the hand cannot clutch the air-drawn dagger, the dag- 
ger is only "a dagger of the mind.""^ In this case, 
apparently, the tactual sensations corresponded with 
the visual. The transparently artless narratives seem 
to indicate that all unconsciously the disciples tried 
the very experiment which a physiological psycholo- 

* An interesting illustration of this principle is seen in the case of Mrs. A., 
reported in Brewster's Letters on Natiwal Magic, quoted by Huxley, Lessons 
in Elementary Physiology, 6th edition, Appendix B. 



Concurrent Evidence of Two Senses 

gist would have suggested. The women, says Mat- 
thew, "took hold of his feet."* Had the visual sensa- 
tion been a delusion, the hands would have grasped 
only air. To the terrified apostles, who ''supposed that 
they had seen a spirit," Jesus said, according to Luke's 
report, ''Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I 
myself : handle me and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh 
and bones, as ye see me have." And John's faithful 
memory has preserved the story how the doubting 
Thomas had his doubts set at rest when Jesus gave 
him the evidence which he demanded — "Reach hither 
thy finger, and behold my hands • and reach hither thy 
hand, and thrust it into my side."f 

I realize fully the difficulties which the thought of 
the present age must find in accepting the faith In the 
resurrection. I see the solemn procession of the gen- 
erations marching Into 

"The undiscovered country from whose bourn 
No traveler returns." 

* Revised Version — here, as usually, more accurate than the Authorized 
Version. 

t The view w^hich Keim has presented in his Geschichte Jesu von N'azara, 
agrees with that of Renan and others in making the appearances of the risen 
Jesus to the disciples purely subjective. From an ethico-theological stand- 
point, however, Keim's position differs very widely from Renan's. Keim holds 
that the vision of the risen Lord came to the disciples by a special divine in- 
fluence exerted upon their souls, for the purpose of convincing them of the 
continued life of their Master, and of the triumph of his kingdom in spite of 
seeming defeat. The vision was, then, a genuine miracle, though it was a 
miracle in the subjective sphere of consciousness, and not in the objective 
sphere of material things. There is, perhaps, no very serious objection a 
priori to the notion of that sort of a miracle. The effect upon the minds of 
the disciples would have been the same as if the miracle had been in the ob- 
jective sphere. But the critical process by which Keim reaches his conclusion 
seems arbitrary and unreasonable. He rejects the narratives in the Gospels 
as worthless, holding that Paul's statement in the First Epi?tle to the Corin- 
thians is the sole trustworthy authority for the fact of the resurrection, I be- 
lieve that a sound criticism must maintain the substantially historic character 
of the Gospel narratives, in spite of diiscrepancies in details, and even if some 



Miracle 

I realize the improbability of an exception to a gen- 
eralization sustained by so immense a mass of accord- 
ant experience. But, when I think of the alternatives 
to belief in the resurrection, they all seem so much 
more improbable that I find it easier to accept the one 
mystery which explains all mysteries. To believe that 
the faith in the resurrection was a delusion so contra- 
dicting all psychological laws, or a myth which was 
fully developed in a single day, or a falsehood perpe- 
trated by the disciples to bring upon themselves im- 
prisonment and death — to believe that the system of 
religious faith which has created a new and nobler 
civilization had its origin in fraud or self-deception — 
taxes credulity more than to believe that Jesus rose 
from the dead. 

If we accept as probably historic the resurrection of 
Jesus, the obvious corollary is suggested, that miracle 
is part of the divine plan of revelation, — that the Ruler 
of the universe, in revealing himself to mankind, has 
seen fit to authenticate that revelation by extraordinary 
events in the physical world. From this point of view 
it appears probable that the miracle of the resurrection 
of Jesus has not been an isolated instance, but that 
other miracles more or less numerous have attended 
the critical epochs in the history of revelation. 

This suggestion finds confirmation in the peculiar 
chronological distribution of miracles in sacred his- 
tory. With very few exceptions, the miraculous nar- 

admixture of leg-endary elements is conceded. Of course, Keim's theory falls 
to the ground if the Gospel narratives are trustworthy. 



Chronological Distribution of Miracles 

ratives of the Bible are included in three great groups. 
One series of miracles is found in connection with the 
Exodus, and the inauguration of the Mosaic law, and 
the establishment of the Jewish church and theocratic 
state. A second series of miracles occurs in connection 
with the inauguration of the prophetic ministry under 
EHjah and Elisha, and the great conflict in the king- 
dom of Israel between the religion of Jehovah and that 
of Baal. The third and greatest series of miracles 
attends the introduction of Christianity under the min- 
istry of Jesus himself and the apostles. Now, if stories 
of miraculous events are sipiply the product of the 
imaginative tendencies of the Hebrew mind, it is diffi- 
cult to see any adequate reason for this limitation of 
miracle to three well-defined groups. We should ex- 
pect them to be more uniformly distributed through 
sacred history. Especially we should expect the lives 
of peculiarly interesting and picturesque characters to 
be adorned with legends of miracles. Abraham, the 
father of the faithful and the friend of God, is a very 
striking figure in sacred history. David, the sweet 
singer and shepherd king, is the very incarnation of 
romance and poetry. And, if the stories of miracles 
in the Bible were simply the product of the uncritical 
imagination which transforms history into legend, we 
should expect the biographies of Abraham and David 
to be luminous with the glory of miracle ; but we find 
scarcely a trace of miracle in the life of either of these 
men. The limitation of miracle to three great series, 
marking respectively the IMosaic, the prophetic, and 

373 



Miracle 

the Christian dispensation in the history of revelation, 
finds its most reasonable explanation in the belief that 
miracle forms a part of the divine plan of revelation, 
and that each of the great critical stages in the devel- 
opment of a progressive revelation has been marked 
by more or less numerous miracles. 

The acceptance of this conclusion by no means re- 
quires us to accept as historic all the miraculous nar- 
ratives of the Old Testament or even of the New Testa- 
ment. While it is probable that each great epoch in 
the history of revelation has been marked by actual 
miracles more or less numerous, it is not unlikely that 
with those narratives of miracle which are truly his- 
toric others may have come to be associated which are 
legendary. It is altogether probable that legendary 
elements in considerably large degree are mingled in 
the Old Testament history, and in less degree even in 
the New Testament history. Each miraculous narra- 
tive in the Bible, then, must be subjected to a distinct 
critical investigation. They differ very widely in their 
degree of probability both a priori and a posteriori. 
Some miracles are characterized by a dignity, and a 
congruity with the revelation of truth which they are 
supposed to authenticate, that commend them strongly 
to our belief. Others are trivial or grotesque, and un- 
accompanied by any revelation of moral or religious 
truth which seems to constitute an adequate reason for 
their existence. As the different miracles of the Bible 
differ widely in the degree of their a priori probability, 
so they differ widely in the value of the testimony by 

374 



Sun and Moon Standing Still 

which they are supported. In the case of the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus, we have found unquestionable evidence 
of contemporary beHef in its reahty. In the case of 
many of the Old Testament miracles, there is no ap- 
proximation to contemporary testimony. 

As an illustration of a miracle which seems to have 
very little claim to acceptance as a historic fact, we 
may take the case of the sun and moon standing still 
in obedience to the word of Joshua.* It is enormously 
improbable a priori that the rotation of the earth was 
suspended in order that Joshua might have a few more 
hours of daylight wherein to slaughter a few more of 
the Amorites. Only on very strong evidence could 
such an allegation find credence. The story occurs in 
a book which nearly all recent critics regard as com- 
posite, documents of different ages having been com- 
piled by a later editor to form a continuous narrative. 
Nothing very definite is known in regard to the author- 
ship and the date, either of the original documents or 
of the compilation. In this anonymous and dateless 
compilation, the command of Joshua to the sun and 
moon is introduced as a quotation from another date- 
less and anonymous book, the Book of Jasher. Of this 
latter book we know nothing beyond the fact that it 
is twice quoted in the extant books of the Old Testa- 
ment, f The other quotation in the Old Testament at- 
tributed to the Book of Jasher is the elegy which David 
is said to have composed after the death of Saul and 

*Josh., X, 12-14. 

t There may be a third quotation from the Book of Jasher in I Kings, viii, 
12, 13. See Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, art. Jasher, by W. H, Bennett. 

375 



Miracle 

Jonathan.* The Book of Jasher, then, is certainly not 
earher in date than the time of David; how much 
later, we have no means of knowing. It is evident then 
that we have nothing that makes any approach to the 
character of contemporary testimony in regard to the 
incident in question. Moreover, the Book of Jasher 
seems to have been a collection of poems; and the 
poetic character of the language in the present case 
suggests the probability that the standing still of sun 
and moon was originally only a figure of speech. The 
sun always stands still for him who works with heroic 
enthusiasm to accomplish what he believes to be a 
divine mission. It seems likely that a more prosaic 
compiler mistook the poet's figure for historic fact. 
But, whether that be the true explanation of the genesis 
of the narrative or not, there is no reason to justify a 
belief that the rotation of the earth was suspended. 

For another illustration of the same sort we may 
take the case of Jonah. The story of the whale or sea 
monster is certainly too grotesque to have any a priori 
probability. By its historic allusions and by its lin- 
guistic characteristics, the Book of Jonah is shown to 
belong to a date at least two hundred years subsequent 
to the time when the prophet is supposed to have lived. 
The non-miraculous parts of the narrative are only 
surpassed in improbability by the miracle itself. In 
all probability the narrative was originally intended to 
be symbolic; the whole story being a sort of parable, 
whose moral teaching is a protest against the narrow- 

*1I Sam,, i, 19-27. 



Jonah and the Whale 

ness of prevalent Jewish conceptions as to the charac- 
ter of Jehovah and his rehgion. The teaching of the 
book is indeed an anticipation of Paul's assertion that 
God is not ''the God of the Jews only'' but "of the Gen- 
tiles also." No utterance of Hebrew prophecy breathes 
a spirit more truly and nobly Christian. Whether the 
symbolic narrative has any foundation in fact, and, if 
so, what that foundation may have been, are questions 
to which no definite answer can be given. The con- 
jecture is not without plausibility that the psalm of 
praise attributed to the prophet, commemorating his 
deliverance from the perils of the sea, forming now 
the second chapter of the book, may have been written 
in celebration of an escape from shipwreck.* But, 
whatever opinions we may hold as to the literary char- 
acter and as to the origin of the Book of Jonah, there 
is surely no sufficient ground for believing that the 
prophet was swallowed by a sea monster, kept alive 
for three days in the alimentary canal of that creature, 
and subsequently discharged alive upon the shore. 

It must be recognized even in the life of Jesus that 
various miraculous events are attended by unequal 
degrees of evidence. The contrast in this respect is 
very striking between the two miraculous events which 
have come to be included in the creeds of Christen- 
dom — the virgin birth and the resurrection. The 
strength of the evidence for the resurrection we have 
already considered. The belief in the resurrection was 
the very corner-stone upon which historic Christianity 

* Driver, hitroduction to the Literature of the Old Testament^ p. 304. 

377 



Miracle 

was built : the very existence of the church is proof 
of contemporaneous beHef in the resurrection as his- 
toric. The assertion of the resurrection formed the 
staple of apostolic preaching. The fact is asserted or 
implied on almost every page of the Acts and Epistles. 
To dissect out from the New Testament the story of 
the resurrection would be to cut the book into frag- 
ments. On the other hand, the story of the virgin 
birth is referred to only in the opening chapters of 
Matthew and Luke — chapters which seem to have a 
somewhat different tone and character from the re- 
maining parts of the same Gospels. If those opening 
chapters of Matthew and Luke were dropped out, not 
a line elsewhere in the New Testament would thereby 
require alteration ; for nowhere else in the New Testa- 
ment is there an assertion or an obvious and unam- 
biguous implication of the virgin birth. I do not say 
that the miraculous birth is not a historic fact. A 
strong argument may be made for its historic truth. 
But the evidence in its favor is incomparably less 
strong than the evidence for the resurrection; and, 
with perfect consistency, a critic may believe that the 
resurrection is a historic fact, and the miraculous birth 
a legend. Accepting the proposition that miracle is a 
part of the divine plan of revelation, we can find no 
difficulty in accepting as historic most of the miracles 
of Jesus related in the Gospels. They are in general 
so dignified, so full of moral significance in them- 
selves, so appropriate to the religious teaching which 
they authenticate, as to commend themselves strongly 

378 



Miracles Attending the Life of Jesus 

to our belief. Yet the critical mind can hardly es- 
cape the feeling that a few. of the miraculous stories 
in the life of Jesus have something of a legendary 
aspect. The story of the piece of money that Peter 
found in the mouth of the fish* has a grotesque aspect 
quite different from that of most of the miracles of 
Jesus; and a person of scientific and critical habit of 
mind cannot easily believe that a legion of devils act- 
ually entered into a herd of swine.f 

My object in referring to these instances has been 
to indicate the general attitude in which the study of 
the miraculous narratives of the Bible must be con- 
ducted. The recognition of miracle as part of the 
divine plan involves the probable occurrence of mir- 
acles more or less numerous at each critical stage of 
revelation; but it must be the work of a criticism at 
once fearless and reverent to examine independently 
each one of the Biblical narratives and estimate its 
degree of probability. Some miracles can be very con- 
fidently accepted. A critical examination of others 
seems to require their rejection as unhistorical. In re- 
gard to a large number, the wisest attitude may prob- 
ably be a suspension of judgment. 

There can be no more pernicious teaching than that 
which Is offered by many good men In the most devout 
spirit and with the best of motives — the teaching that 
all the miracles of the Bible must stand or fall to- 
gether. The great strength of the evidence of the res- 

*Matt., xvii, 24-27. 

t Matt., viii, 28-34 ; Mark, v, 1-20 ; Luke, viii, 26-39. 

379 



Miracle 

urrection of Jesus renders reasonable not only the 
acceptance of that miracle, but also the acceptance of 
other miracles in themselves supported by far less of 
evidence; but the Christian apologist must beware of 
carrying this line of argument too far. There is a 
limit to the acceptance of beliefs, otherwise improb- 
able, as corollaries of the belief in the resurrection of 
Jesus. Strong as is that foundation, it may be crushed 
by building upon it too heavy a superstructure. There 
is no more effective way of destroying the faith in 
Christianity than to teach men that we cannot accept 
the resurrection of Jesus without accepting as equally 
historic the standing still of sun and moon and Jonah's 
sojourn in the whale. 

The subject of ecclesiastical miracles and that of 
pagan miracles require no extended discussion. The 
numerous miracles with which the lives of medieval 
saints have been adorned, are for the most part trifling, 
grotesque, or ridiculous. They inculcate no moral 
lessons ; they teach no doctrine except that of the emi- 
nent saintship of the person about whom they are re- 
lated. The lives of the saints, in which they are re- 
lated, are generally of so sentimental a character as to 
be utterly untrustworthy, and in most cases there is no 
contemporary testimony."^ If possible, still more un- 
worthy of credence are most of the miracles or prod- 
igies connected with the lives of pagan saints and 

* Some of the remarkable stories related of the saints are doubtless historic, 
but not miraculous. There is no reason to doubt that Saint Francis of Assisi 
had the stigmata in his hands and feet. The same phenomenon has appeared 
in unquestionable modern instances, and admits of physiological explanation. 
See Carpenter, Principles of Mental Physiology, p. 689. 

380 



Ecclesiastical, Pagan, and Modern Miracles 

heroes. The contrast between these pagan and eccle- 
siastical miracles, and the great majority of the miracles 
of the New Testament, was clearly recognized in the 
remark of Niebuhr in regard to the New Testament 
miracles, that "it only requires a comparison with 
legends, or the pretended miracles of other reli- 
gions, to perceive by what a different spirit they are 
animated."* 

Nor is there need of any extended discussion of so- 
called modern miracles, such as those of faith-healers 
and Christian Scientists. The cures wrought are often 
incomplete and temporary. A la^ge share of the cases 
are cases of those obscure nervous diseases which, as 
every student of physiology and psychology knows, 
are very likely to be temporarily mitigated or perma- 
nently cured by the influence of strong mental impres- 
sions upon the nervous system. Such cases are often 
cured by spiritualists or mesmerists, by mental sug- 
gestions communicated by a physician in whom the 
patient has confidence, or by purely accidental causes 
like an alarm of fire in a house in which a bed-ridden 
patient is lying. While we must hold fast to the asser- 
tion of Hume,f that "whatever is intelligible and can 
be distinctly conceived, implies no contradiction, and 
can never be proved false by any demonstrative argu- 
ment, or abstract reasoning a priori/' and while there- 
fore the -possibility of the occurrence of very extraor- 
dinary events at any time in the past or future must 

* Memoi7- of Niebii/ir^ American edition, p. 236 ; cited by Fisher, Grounds 0/ 
Theistic and Christian Belief, revised edition, p. 432. 
t Cited on page 354. 

381 



Miracle 

be conceded, the only miracles which can be considered 
as reasonably well attested are those which mark the 
successive stages of that progressive revelation which 
has culminated in Christianity. 

And now we must ask, what is the significance of 
miracle? Assuming that miracles have occurred in 
connection with the introduction of particular phases 
of religious teaching, we must ask, what purpose have 
those miracles served? In the first place, miracles at- 
tract attention to the religious teacher by whom they 
are performed. The multitudes followed Jesus and 
listened to him, because they saw his miracles. Mir- 
acles, then, arouse attention and secure a hearing for 
the teacher. But the significance of a miracle is far 
more than merely to excite attention. A miracle serves 
to authenticate as authoritative the teaching with 
which it is associated. The significance of miracle 
was expressed in the words of Nicodemus :* "Rabbi, 
we know that thou art a teacher come from God ; for 
no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except 
God be with him." The divine power revealed in the 
acts of Jesus attested the divine authority of the words 
of Jesus. The thought of Nicodemus would require 
somewhat of restatement to bring it into accord with 
our philosophic views of divine immanence and the 
constancy of natural laws; but the argument in its 
essential meaning is still valid. If the Ordainer of 
the whole system of natural law has so planned that 
system as to make a startling event, inexplicable to 

* John, iii, 2. 

382 



Significance of Miracle 

human knowledge, and contradicting the inductions 
founded on previous experience, occur in coincidence 
with religious teaching of extraordinary significance, 
it must be assumed that the coincidence is designed, 
and that the design of such coincidence is the authenti- 
cation of the teaching as authoritative. The miracles 
of Jesus, then, not only command attention but com- 
mand belief. 

Such, then, was the office of the miracles of Jesus 
in their time; but the question remains, have those 
miracles any value to us? Now that Christianity has 
found a wide and sympathetic hearing, and has com- 
mended itself to the judgment of mankind by its in- 
trinsic beauty, its accord with the highest philosophy, 
and its adaptation to the moral needs of humanity, — 
now that it has become embodied in the institutions of 
Christian civilization, — are the old miracles of any 
value to us? Did miracle serve only to introduce 
Christian faith when Christian faith w^as a stranger 
to the world, or does it serve still to support Christian 
faith? Was miracle only a scaffolding, which was 
necessary when the temple of Christianity was in proc- 
ess of building, but which might well be pulled down 
or allowed to fall into ruin when the edifice was fin- 
ised? or is it still a structural element of the building, 
a pillar by which in part the building is supported ? Not 
a few devout and thoughtful people have believed that 
the remarkable phenomena which appeared in con- 
nection with the teaching of Jesus had their mission 
in introducing the teaching of Jesus to the world, but 

383 



Miracle 

that they are of no value to us, and that it Is of no 
consequence whether the supposed events were his- 
toric facts or illusions. Unquestionably there is a truth 
underlying this line of thought — the truth that other 
phases of Christian evidence have developed them- 
selves into greater relative importance with the prog- 
ress of Christian thought and lif-e, and that the evi- 
dence afiforded by miracle is of less relative importance 
than at the beginning of Christianity. Yet I believe 
that the evidence of miracle is still valid and still 
needed. We stand in an upper room in Jerusalem, and 
listen to the words with which the young Prophet of 
Galilee comforted his disciples on the last night of 
his life. "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe 
in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are 
many mansions : if it were not so, I would have told 
you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go 
and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and re- 
ceive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may 
be also." Beautiful words, in their sweet simplicity, 
and in their accord with our highest moral sentiments, 
our holiest aspirations! Words so beautiful ought to 
be true. But are they the words of one who speaks 
with authority and whose word can be trusted? or are 
they only the sweet dreams of a spirit too pure and 
gentle for this hard, rough world? To us, as to those 
disciples who heard him, the evidence of the authority 
of his teaching is found in the fact of his resurrection. 
It was not so much the beautiful farewell address to 
the disciples, as the empty sepulcher on the Easter 

384 



Revelation and the Bible 

morning, that "brought life and immortality to light." 
The words which the church reads over the graves of 
its dead, and which bring to a dying world the bright- 
est hope that it has ever known, are taken from the 
fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corin- 
thians — the chapter in which we have the earliest and 
the most certainly authentic record of the fact of the 
resurrection of Jesus. 

Revelation and the Bible 

In the controversies attending and following the 
Reformation, Protestants were led to emphasize the 
authority of the Bible, in contrast with the Roman 
Catholic doctrine of the authority of the church. One 
unhappy result of these controversies was an extrava- 
gant and superstitious notion as to the relation of the 
Bible to the Christian revelation. That exaggerated 
estimate of the position of the Bible found expression 
in the phrase oft repeated as a watchword of Protes- 
tantism, "the Bible the religion of Protestants." Cer- 
tainly the Bible is not our religion. Christianity is a 
series of historic facts, a system of theological doc- 
trines, a life of faith and consecration. The Bible con- 
tains indeed a record of those facts, teaches those 
doctrines, and tends to inspire the soul to live that 
life; but in no sense is the Christian religion synony- 
mous or coextensive with the Bible. . The Bible is not 
the revelation, but the record of the revelation; and 
the revelation has always preceded the books in which 
it has been recorded. Abraham and Moses had no 

385 



Revelation and the Bible 

Bible; the Christian church lived and grew and de- 
veloped in theological thought and religious life for 
more than half a century before the latest book of the 
New Testament was written, and for a still longer time 
before those books were collected to form the canon of 
the New Testament. 

The central truth of revelation is that God has spoken 
TToXvfiepcjg Kal ttoXvtqottgx; — *'by divers portions and in 
divers manners."* We need not suppose that he has 
spoken to Jews and Christians alone. He has been the 
God "not of the Jews only," but "of the Gentiles 
also;" and we may welcome the truth that has been 
proclaimed by pagan saints and sages as a genuine 
revelation of God.f Nevertheless, the supreme man- 
ifestation of God to man is in that historic series of 
revelations which culminates in the appearance of Jesus 
Christ. God has revealed himself in human life — in 
subjective experiences, and in objective facts of indi- 
vidual and national history; in the visions of divine 
truth which have come to the soul of the seer and saint ; 
in Abraham's wandering into exile to found a mono- 
theistic family and a theocratic state, in the Exodus 
and the Mosaic law, in the ritual of tabernacle and 
temple, in prophetic word and prophetic symbol; and 
preeminently in the sinless life, the unique teaching, 
and the works of love and power of Jesus Christ, and 
in the great facts of his death and resurrection. He 
revealed himself in the life of the church of the apos- 

* Hebrews, i, i, Revised Version. 

t So Justin Martyr recognized Socrates as divinely enlightened. Second 
Apology^ ch. X. 

386 



Inspiration 

tolic age, and reveals himself continuously in the life 
of the church of all ages. 

"Slowly the Bible of the race is writ, 

And not on paper leaves nor leaves of stone." 

Inspiration is not identical with revelation. Inspira- 
tion is the influence of the divine Spirit upon a human 
soul. It is only by a sort of metonymy that we can 
predicate inspiration of a book. An inspired book can 
mean nothing other than a book written by inspired 
men. There is nothing on earth that can be inspired 
excepting human souls. In the beautiful liturgy in 
which so largely the devotion of the English-speaking 
.world has found expression, men are taught to pray, 
"Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration 
of thy Holy Spirit." But the multitude of worshipers 
who have joined in that prayer, and in whose lives it 
has found an answer, have neither expected nor re- 
ceived new revelations of religious truth. The true 
Light "lighteth every man that cometh into the world." 
Inspiration in some degree is the privilege of every 
human soul that does not willfully close its doors 
against the heavenly Guest; and to all those who are 
called in the providence of God to positions of peculiar 
importance and responsibility, may come a special in- 
spiration to fit them for the work they are called to do. 
The true preacher prays for and receives an inspiration 
that gives power to his arguments and appeals. The 
missionary and the reformer are inspired for their con- 
flicts with heathenism and with error. And so to 
prophet and evangelist and apostle came inspiration in 

Z^7 



Revelation and the Bible 

form and measure to. qualify them for the service which 
they were to render in the working out of a historic 
revelation. The inspiration which in all subsequent 
ages of the church has come out of the Bible, is proof 
of the inspiration that went into the Bible. 

It is needless to seek for diagnostic characters which 
will distinguish the inspiration of the men of the Bible 
from the inspiration of later workers in the church — 
the inspiration of Isaiah and Paul from that of Savon- 
arola and Wesley. The truth of the divine immanence 
well-nigh makes void the distinction of natural and 
supernatural in the activities of God in the physical 
universe. The supernatural can mean no more than the 
uncommon or unusual, in a universe which is all di- 
vine.* In like manner, a true philosophy of the moral 
universe will recognize the universality of inspiration ; 
and so the significance of the inspiration of prophet and 
evangelist and apostle is not in that their inspiration dif- 
fers per se, qualitatively or quantitatively, from that of 
God's workmen of later times, but simply in the fact 
that in the providence of God they were called to the 
work of expounding or recording the successive stages 
of progressive revelation. The historical relation of 
their work to the divine plan, not anything in itself 
peculiar in their experiences of the divine life, gives 
to their work a unique significance and value. 

* " The only distinct meaning^ of the word ' natural ' is stated, fixed, or set- 
tled ; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelliofent 
agent to render it so, i. e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is 
supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." Butler, Analogy of Re- 
ligion. It is noteworthy that Darwin quoted this passage as one of the mot- 
toes opposite the title page of the Origin of Species. 

388 



Revelation Progressive 

We have noticed some of the contradictions between 
the Scripture text and the facts and probabihties of 
science, which are irreconcilable with a belief in the in- 
errancy of the Bible. But science is not alone in con- 
tradicting the dogma of the irterrancy of the Bible. 
There are historical inaccuracies in the Bible as unques- 
tionably as scientific errors, and in multitudes of cases 
various parts of the Bible contradict each other. Surely 
the Bible is not inerrant, nor is there any reason why it 
should be. It is not itself the revelation, but it is 
a record of the revelation which was given in human 
life and history. For the purposes of such a record, in- 
errancy is not necessary, but only a substantially true 
representation of the facts of revelation, and a high 
spiritual conception of its ethical and religious content. 

When we recognize the progressive character of 
revelation, we find no stumbling-block in the imperfect 
conceptions even of moral and religious truth set forth 
in the Bible. Neither the theology nor the ethics of 
the Christian dispensation could be taught to the Jews 
of the time of the Exodus. The Mosaic law of divorce 
is not the Christian law. The ethical standard of the 
imprecatory Psalms is not that of the Sermon on the 
Mount. The religious life revealed in the Book of 
Judges is not the same that irradiates the Gospel of 
John. Like the pillar of cloud and fire in the wilder- 
ness, God's revelation marches through the centuries 
before his people, never so far in advance as to be out 
of sight, always far enough in advance to keep devout 
and obedient souls moving forward. 

389 



Revelation and the Bible 

Thus we recognize in what sense the Bible is authori- 
tative. Since inerrancy or infalhbihty can be predi- 
cated neither of the Bible as a whole, nor of any 
particular part of the Bible, no single sentence of the 
Bible can be in itself authoritative. The use of de- 
tached sentences as proof-texts, without regard to the 
context, by which all sorts of absurd and abominable 
doctrines have been supposed to be proved by the au- 
thority of the Bible, rests upon principles radically 
false. But, when the Bible is viewed as a record of 
a progressive revelation, and its component parts are 
studied with a literary and historic sense that places 
us in the standpoint of the various writers, the gen- 
eral significance of the revelation which it records is 
intelligible to the devout and candid mind. 

When we come to think of the Bible, not as a mag- 
ical book, made all at once, and dropped upon the 
earth like the heaven-descended idols of pagan super- 
stition, but rather as the record of the human life and 
experience through which God was revealing himself; 
when we feel in its living pages the pulsations of the 
hearts of men who were struggling with the evil of 
their times, and striving to live the truth which had 
been revealed to them ; when we recognize the intense 
humanity of the Bible; it acquires for us an interest 
which the impersonal and inerrant book of post-Refor- 
mation dogma could never have. Like Him whose 
story it records, the Bible is 

'* Most human and yet most divine, 
The flower of man and God." 



PART III 

GENERAL STATUS OF CHRISTIAN 
EVIDENCES 



PART III 

General Status of Christian Evidences 

In the period of somewhat more than a century 
since the pubhcation of the classical works of Butler 
and Paley, there has been a pretty radical change in 
the method of apologetics. This change has been in 
part necessitated by the change in the prevalent form 
of unbelief. In the eighteenth century the prevalent 
form of unbelief, at least in England, was deism ; and 
the great defenders of Christian faith shaped their 
arguments with reference to the position of their an- 
tagonists. The whole argument, for instance, of But- 
ler's "Analogy" is that the difficulties in the way of 
believing in the divine authorship of Christianity are 
not other in kind nor greater in degree than the diffi- 
culties in the way of believing in the divine authorship 
of nature. Accordingly, presuming that his readers 
were ready to believe in a divine Author of nature, he 
called upon them to believe in a divine Author of 
Christianity. Very different is the prevalent phase of 
unbelief to-day. In the thought of this age deism is 
thoroughly discredited. No religious or philosophic 
system ever paid so poor interest on the investment of 
faith required for its acceptance as deism. If a man 
■ 393 



General Status of Christian Evidences 

is able to stretch his faith so far beyond the reach of 
sensuous experience or of mathematical demonstration 
as to beheve in a personal God, it seems absurdly fool- 
ish to forego the comfort and the inspiration which 
lie in the belief in a Heavenly Father, and to make his 
personal God the v^orthless caput mortuum of deism. 
The unbelief of to-day refuses either to affirm or to 
deny the personality of the ground of all existence, 
maintaining that the question transcends the reach of 
human faculty, and that the only philosophical attitude 
is the holding of opinion in abeyance. Agnosticism is 
the unbelief of to-day; and arguments addressed to 
the deist make no impression upon the agnostic. 

But while, outside of the pale of Christianity, there 
is less disposition now than in the eighteenth century 
to concede or accept the existence of a personal God, 
there has been a wonderful change in the attitude of 
non-Christian thought toward the person of Jesus 
Christ. A profound reverence for the character of 
Jesus is almost as characteristic of the heretical thought 
as of the orthodox thought of our time. Compare the 
scurrilous blasphemy of Paine with the tender senti- 
mentalism of Renan, and you will find a striking illus- 
tration of this change of feeling toward Jesus. In 
view of this twofold change in the character of preva- 
lent non-Christian thought, it is not strange that Chris- 
tian apologists have come to ask themselves the ques- 
tion whether the evidence of Christianity is not 
stronger than the evidence of theism, and whether, in 
arguing primarily for theism and appending Chris- 

394 



Character of Eighteenth-Century Thought 

tianity thereto as a corollary, they have not failed to 
show the real strength of the evidence of the truth 
which they have sought to defend. 

But the change in the order and perspective of apolo- 
getics is not due alone to the change in the prevalent 
form of disbelief. It is due chiefly to a change in the 
general character of the thought of the age. Believers 
and disbelievers in Christianity float on the same stream 
of the world's thought, and feel the impulse of the 
same current. The thought of the eighteenth century 
was bound at all hazards to be systematic ; the thought 
of to-day cares not whether it is systematic or not. 
Eighteenth-century investigators were unwilling to 
march into the territory of the unknown, except in the 
most elaborate and punctilious military order. More 
recent investigators deploy as skirmishers, and are 
content if, by the most irregular scientific bushwhack- 
ing, they can bring in a few captive facts. Eighteenth- 
century thought on every subject aimed to lay down 
first principles which were axiomatic or capable of 
somewhat easy proof, and then to proceed to ulterior 
conclusions by a rigorous process of deduction. The 
thought of to-day is chiefly inductive. It conjures up 
an hypothesis, and tests it by its coincidence or lack 
of coincidence with facts. Only exceptionally are its 
hypotheses capable of verification by some crucial ex- 
periment or observation which absolutely excludes all 
alternative opinions. In the vast majority of cases its 
hypotheses find a provisional verification in that the 
tout ensemble of phenomena appear to accord with the 

395 



General Status of Christian Evidences 

chosen hypothesis more fully than with any alternative 
one. It is a striking illustration of this change in in- 
tellectual habit that those sciences whose work is 
largely mathematical and deductive attained a condi- 
tion of relative maturity much earlier than those 
sciences whose work is mainly observational and in- 
ductive. Newton's 'Trincipia/' the epoch-making 
masterpiece of deductive science, belongs to the close 
of the seventeenth century. Darwin's "Origin of Spe- 
cies," the epoch-making masterpiece of inductive sci- 
ence, belongs to the middle of the nineteenth century. 
This change in the general habit of thought of the 
times changes naturally the order and perspective of 
apologetics. Eighteenth-century apologetics had to be 
systematic and consecutive. It must make theism the 
fundamental proposition, and proceed to build the evi- 
dence of Christian revelation upon the foundation of 
theism. But the consecutive method, although per- 
fectly adapted for subjects in which demonstration 
is possible, is essentially ill adapted for subjects in 
which the reasoning can be only probable. In geom- 
etry, we can start with axioms which may be accepted 
as substantially certain, and Proposition i may be de- 
ductively inferred from axioms and definitions. In 
the demonstration of Proposition 2, we may use Propo- 
sition I, as well as the axioms and definitions, and so 
on through the series. Essentially the same virtual 
certainty that marks the axioms at the beginning is 
carried forward to the end. But this mode of pro- 
cedure is not so effective in dealing with subjects where 

396 



Inconsistencies in Apologetics 

demonstration is impossible. If we have two premises, 
the probabiHty of whose truth may be expressed in 
each case by the fraction f , the resultant probability 
of the conclusion, on the assumption that these prem- 
ises include all the evidence for the truth of the con- 
clusion, has a value of only -^. If we proceed to use 
that conclusion as a premise for further consecutive 
reasoning, combining it with another proposition 
which is only probable, it is evident that the force 
of the probability is further weakened; and thus the 
probability is reduced at every step until the argument 
comes to be of utterly insignificant value. 

But the traditional presentation of Christian evi- 
dences was not merely subject to the weakness that is 
inherent in any attempt at a consecutive presentation 
of evidence on a subject which does not admit of 
demonstration. The argument came to be burdened 
with a gratuitous accumulation of inconsistencies. The 
outline of procedure in apologetics has, in fact, often 
been substantially as follows: — Proposition i. There 
is a God, because the religious intuitions of humanity 
affirm that there is a God. Proposition 2. There is 
need of revelation, because the religious intuitions of 
humanity are so conflicting and uncertain that they are 
good for nothing. Proposition 3. Christianity is a 
revelation from God, because the religious intuitions 
of humanity approve It. If the student who has 
reached that stage in the argument has any lingering 
faith in either God or man, it may be matter for 
thanksgiving. 

397 



General Status of Christian Evidences 

From a consecutive, we must turn to a cumulative, 
presentation of the evidence. Our apologetic must 
conform, not to the consecutive and deductive model 
of eighteenth-century thought, but to the hypothetical 
and inductive model of present thought. The verifica- 
tion of belief must be sought, not in a single invincible 
line of argument, but in the conformity of the belief 
to an assemblage of multitudinous phenomena — in the 
convergence of lines of evidence drawn from different 
and apparently unconnected classes of facts. It was 
remarked long ago by Lord Bacon that the confirma- 
tion of scientific theories depends upon the mutual co- 
herence and adaptation of their parts, whereby they 
sustain each other like the parts of an arch or dome.* 
No finer example of this dome of hypothesis is afforded 
in the history of human thought than in the case of 
that theory of evolution whose discovery and verifica- 
tion was the great intellectual achievement of the nine- 
teenth century. Do we believe in evolution because 
organs appropriated to different uses may yet be homol- 
ogous in structure? or because the bodies of animals 
and plants are full of rudimentary organs? or because 
the successive stages of development of the embryo 
are in large degree approximate recapitulations of the 
series of earlier and lower species ? or because the geo- 
logical record shows in successive ages a gradual ex- 
pansion of organic types, a progressive ascent to forms 
of higher grade, and a gradual approximation to the 

* Theoriarum vires, arcta et quasi se jnutuo sustinente partium adapta- 
tione, gua quasi in orbem cohcerent, firmantur. 

398 



Convergent Lines of Evidence 

fauna and flora of to-day ? or because successive faunas 
and floras in the same region reveal a similarity which 
suggests community of origin? or because the bound- 
ary lines of all groups recognized in zoological and 
botanical classification grow more indefinite with in- 
creasing knowledge ? No. Not one of these classes of 
facts would be sufficient to establish a reasonable 
probability for the doctrine of evolution. The proba- 
bility of the doctrine lies precisely in the fact that all 
these different and independent lines of argument con- 
verge to one conclusion — that the idea of evolution 
gives an intelligible and unitary significance to all these 
classes of facts which are otherwise unconnected and 
meaningless. In like cumulative form must be ex- 
hibited the convergence of evidence toward the truth 
of Christianity. Nature, with its myriad adaptations 
and its all-pervading order and law, its omnipresent 
aspect of intellectuality; man, with his inextinguish- 
able sense of responsibility and his irrepressible reli- 
gious aspirations ; the historic Jesus, with his stainless 
life and his unparalleled teaching; Christianity, with 
its doctrines so sublime, so comforting, and so en- 
nobling; Christendom, with its vast philanthropies 
and its new type of civilization — these constitute an 
ensemble of facts which must be rationally accounted 
for. The idea of a Heavenly Father revealed in Christ 
Jesus gives to them all an intelligible and unitary 
significance. 

The real evidence, then, for Christianity is not found 
in any one line of argument, but in the convergence 

399 



General Status of Christian Evidences 

of all lines. The dome rests, not on one pillar, but on 
many pillars. But, although the dome must be sup- 
ported on every side, and its strength is dependent upon 
the many-sidedness of its support, it is not necessary 
that all the pillars should be equally strong, or should 
sustain equal portions of the weight of the structure. 
And, while the cogency of Christian evidence consists 
in the convergence of various lines of evidence, it does 
not necessarily follow that those various lines of 
evidence are equally important. Nor will the com- 
parative importance of different lines of evidence be 
the same in different ages. 

Of the various convergent lines of evidence, there 
are two which are especially impressive to the thought 
of the present age. One of these is found in the effects 
of Christianity. And here we come to formulate the 
unconscious logic of the faith in Christianity which for 
most of us is associated with the tenderest memories 
of childhood. The noble lives and characters of those 
who in our childhood were nearest and dearest to us, 
were a proof of the truth of that religion which ex- 
pressed itself in life and character. It is in this view 
an inspiring thought that the duty of the Church is 
not merely to expound, but to make, the evidence of 
Christianity. The world beholds the daily miracle of 
souls dead in sin rising into the life of goodness, and, 
as in the ancient days, the multitudes glorify God, who 
has given such power unto men.* 

But, of all evidences of Christianity, to modern 

*Matt., ix, 8. 
400 



Christ the Evidence of Christianity 

thought the most impressive is found in the person- 
ahty of Jesus Christ. BibHcal criticism, while it has 
contradicted many traditional opinions in regard to 
the date and authorship of the books of the Bible, has 
pretty thoroughly established the early date of enough 
of the New Testament to show that the portrait of 
Jesus is a contemporary portrait. The affidavits of 
the original witnesses are certified by the notarial seal 
of modern criticism. The Jesus whose unique charac- 
ter was an oasis of heaven in the sin-blasted desert of 
earth — teacher of a morality unapproached in its stern 
purity, yet friend of sinners — incarnation of self-sacri- 
fice, yet free from taint of asceticism or stoicism — 
bearing in sympathetic woe the burden of a world^s 
sin, yet making the wedding feast more glad by his 
presence, and condescending in his last agony to ask 
the faint alleviation of a drink to moisten lips and 
tongue — brave, patient, tender to all, sympathizing with 
the sorrows of every human soul, though none could 
sympathize with him — was no dream that tender and 
saintly souls dreamed when the simple outlines of fact 
had grown dim in tradition, but was painted from life. 
Through the historic Jesus we are led to faith in the 
divine Christ. Christ himself is not only the inspira- 
tion of Christian life and the center of Christian 
dogma, but also the foundation of Christian apolo- 
getics. "Ye believe in God, believe also in me," said 
the Master to his perplexed, doubting, sorrowing dis- 
ciples, while he yet waited for the glorification which 
could come only through the cross and the sepulcher. 

401 



General Status of Christian Evidences 

Enthroned by the reverent love of humanity, inspiring 
the world's highest thought and noblest life, Christ 
might say to the doubters of our age, *'Ye believe in 
me, believe also in God/' 

And now we are prepared to answer the question 
which we proposed to ourselves in the beginning of 
our discussion — can the faith which first breathed 
in the unscientific atmosphere of the first century 
survive in the scientific atmosphere of the twentieth 
century ? 

We have traced the history of the great discoveries 
which have created the new intellectual atmosphere. 
The flat earth has rolled itself into a spheroid. The once 
steadfast earth spins in its orbit around a central sun. 
The heavenly bodies have stretched apart into measure- 
less distances. The six thousand years of tradition 
have expanded into a duration immense if not eternal. 
Man himself, though his duration is but a moment in 
comparison with that of the universe, claims an an- 
tiquity far beyond the traditional limit. The chaotic 
manifoldness of nature has given place to a threefold 
unity — a unity of substance, a unity of force, and a 
unity of process. All changes of matter, lifeless and 
living alike, are the expression of transformations of 
a stock of energy which suffers neither addition nor 
subtraction. From the nebula to man we find no 
break in the continuity of evolution. Meteors have 
clustered into suns and planets. The incandescent sur- 
face of the globe has wrinkled into continents and 
oceans. The simplest forms of life have developed in 

402 



Faith Survives in an Age of Science 

endless ramification into the varied species of plants 
and animals, till animal life has grown divine in man 
himself. 

And we have recognized that these changes in our 
thought of the universe cannot but work correspond- 
ing changes in our thought of God and of his revela- 
tion to man. We have ceased to look to the Bible for 
a revelation of the plan and history of the universe, or 
to regard the Bible as inerrant. The ''carpenter God" 
has vanished from a universe which we have come to 
regard as a growth and not as a building. The meta- 
physical dogma of the duality of essence in human 
nature has been rendered uncertain by the tendencies 
of biological science. Evolutionary anthropology must 
regard the fall of man as potential rather than actual. 
The tendencies of scientific thought have compelled us 
to reject as unhistoric some of the Biblical narratives of 
miracle, and to regard others as more or less doubtful. 

Yet these changes of belief involve the abandonment 
of no essential doctrine of Christianity. A Heavenly 
Father, a risen Saviour, an inspired and inspiring 
Bible, an immortal hope, are still ours. 

The question which we have asked is one which 
thoughtful men are bound to ask. However tender 
and sacred the memories with which Christian faith 
is associated, intellectual honesty forbids the student 
to retain that faith, unless he can find satisfactory 
reasons for it. Hence each generation must have its 
own apologetic. If Christianity is to be the faith of 
all ages, its evidences must be capable of being so 

403 



General Status of Christian Evidences 

presented as to establish a probability of its truth for 
each age, as viewed in the light of the knowledge and 
the dominant ideas of that age. But men who are not 
students of science and philosophy behold a practical 
reconciliation of scientific and religious thought work- 
ing itself out in the life of mankind. The close of 
the nineteenth century was marked by the acceptance 
of the theories of conservation of energy and organic 
evolution, not as esoteric doctrines of scientific men, 
but as the popular belief of the masses. Yet it is 
equally certain that the close of the nineteenth century 
was marked by a decided movement in the world of 
thought towards the revival and strengthening of the- 
istic and Christian faith. The generation in which we 
live — the generation which has accepted the doctrines 
of modern science — is more strongly influenced by the 
teachings of Christianity than any previous genera- 
tion. Never has there been a time when the professed 
believers in Christianity were so numerous, or when 
the individual and the social life of mankind was so 
largely controlled by the spirit of Christianity. And 
multitudes of men and women find that the acceptance 
of scientific teachings in no wise disturbs their personal 
religious life. As men practically ceased to feel their 
Christian faith disturbed by the Copernican astronomy 
and by the geological doctrine of the antiquity of the 
earth, so men are practically ceasing, whether logically 
or illogically, to feel their Christian faith disturbed by 
the scientific discoveries which marked the middle of 
the nineteenth century. 

404 



Christianity Adapted to All Humanity 

The history of the survival of Christianity through 
all the changes of intellectual environment is most im- 
pressive. Other religions have found a congenial soil 
in a particular nation, age, or stage of intellectual cul- 
ture; and have perished, or led a feeble, exotic life, 
beyond their natural boundaries. Christianity, by rea- 
son of its adaptation to universal humanity, thrives in 
every land and every age. The religion which sprang 
from the bosom of a nomad tribe of Asia has become 
the religion of the most enlightened nations of Europe. 
The princes of European intellect have worshiped the 
God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Like its great 
apostle, Christianity is ''made all things to all men," 
that it may ''by all means save some." In an age when 
men were capable only of grossly anthropomorphic 
conceptions of Deity, the patriarchal and Mosaic reva- 
lations (which were Christianity in anticipation) glo- 
rified that anthropomorphism with a moral dignity to 
which the mythology of classic lands made no ap- 
proach. In an age when primitive anthropomorphic 
conceptions give way to those of science, Christianity 
touches the cold, majestic marble of law, and it thrills 
and pulsates with divine love. The world outgrows 
other religions ; it grows in Christianity. 

The history contains a prophecy. The fact that, in 
changing environment, Christianity has not become ex- 
tinct, but has varied and become adapted, seems to 
show that it possesses that plasticity — that power of 
adaptation to new environment — which entitles an or- 
ganism to be preserved by natural selection. The 

405 



General Status of Christian Evidences 

history suggests that Christianity survives because it 
meets the moral needs of mankind — because, whatever 
errors or superstitions may have been hnked with it, 
and supposed by its foes or its friends to be integral 
parts of it, it contains essential truth. As long as man 
the finite seeks to gain inspiration from the infinite, 
as long as man the sinful seeks moral uplifting by the 
contemplation of the not himself ''which makes for 
righteousness," so long, we may well believe, will there 
be need of anthropomorphic symbols for the myste- 
rious Power "dwelling in the light which no man can 
approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see;" 
and so long the truest symbols to represent a truth 
which, in its real essence, transcends all human expres- 
sion and all human thought, will be those afforded by 
him who taught the world to say, "Our Father which 
art in heaven." 

It is needless to say that no claim of certainty can be 
maintained in regard to Christianity as a system, or in 
regard to any particular doctrine of Christianity. Prob- 
ability is all that can be claimed. But it is well for us 
to remind ourselves that it is not alone in religious 
matters that we must be guided by probability, and 
must recognize certainty as unattainable. Our discus- 
sion of the methods of science and the meaning of 
natural law* has made it clear to our minds that cer- 
tainty in natural science is absolutely unattainable. We 
cannot know that the external universe has any objec- 
tive existence. Our whole system of natural law may 

*Page 321. 
406 



Probability the Guide of Life 

be but a castle in the air. The postulate of the uni- 
formity of nature, upon which all our reasoning is 
founded, is itself utterly undemonstrable. If our postu- 
late is admitted, the reasoning that is based upon it is 
at no step demonstrative, and the results can never DC 
certain. The laws of nature which w^e consider most 
thoroughly verified may be true only approximately 
and within limits. Nowhere in the whole system of 
natural and physical science can we find certainty. 

From this point of view we recognize the utter van- 
ity of the talk which is so frequently heard, in which the 
solid facts of science are contrasted with the iridescent 
dreams of religion, and religious men are reproached 
for their folly in making undemonstrable beliefs the 
basis of their plans of life. It is well for us to remind 
ourselves how very narrow are the limits within which 
certainty is attainable. The laws of thought are cer- 
tain. We may imagine a universe where space has 
more or less than three dimensions; but we cannot 
imagine a universe where a thing can be and not be 
at the same time. Certain, too, for each individual, is 
his present state of consciousness. That is the one 
fact which it is absolutely impossible to doubt. But, 
beyond the present state of consciousness and the laws 
of thought, all beliefs can be only in greater or less 
degree probable. Our personal identity, the reliability 
of memory and of mental faculties in general, the ex- 
istence of the external world, may all be denied without 
self-contradiction. Alike in the common afifairs of 
daily life, in our scientific speculations, and in the 

407 



General Status of Christian Evidences 

sphere of morals and religion, we base, upon postulates 
which are undemonstrable, conclusions which more or 
less probably are more or less close approximations 
to the truth. And in all these spheres we act upon 
such beliefs as if they were certainly true. No one 
refuses to eat his dinner because he doubts the exist- 
ence of the external world; no one refuses to accept 
payment of a debt because he doubts his personal iden- 
tity or the validity of memory. We take medicine 
when we are ill, though we never can be sure that it 
will do us good. We build bridges, though we never 
can be sure that they will bear the loads that will be 
put upon them. We launch ships, though we never 
can be sure that they will reach their destined port. 
We advocate social and political reforms, though we 
never can be sure that the measures which we advocate 
will be useful. As Locke has well said, "He that will 
not stir until he infallibly knows that the business he 
goes about will succeed, will have but little else to do 
but to sit still and perish."* In like manner, it is rea- 
sonable to regulate our lives in accordance with a sense 
of responsibility to a God whose existence we can 
never demonstrate; in accordance with an expectation 
of a future life of which we can have no assurance 
until each one for himself is called to try the awful 
alternative of extinction or immortality; and in ac- 
cordance with the doctrines and precepts of a religion 
for no article of whose creed we can claim more than 

* Quoted {North American Review^ vol. clxx, p. 582) by F. S. Hoffman, in 
article on The Scientific Method in Theology. 

408 



Theoretical Doubt and Practical Faith 

that it is more or less probably a more or less close 
approximation to the truth. Through a theoretical 
skepticism may lie our path to an intelligent practical 
faith. From the clear recognition of the extremely 
narrow limits within which certitude is attainable, we 
may learn the rationality and the wisdom of acting 
upon beliefs which are merely probable, and acting 
with an earnestness proportionate to the importance of 
the interests involved. We may learn to walk by faith 
more steadily, by perceiving that, in this universe in 
which we live, only he who is willing to walk by faith 
can walk at all. 

The compatibility of a theoretical skepticism with 
a practical faith seems to me the most important prac- 
tical lesson from this discussion. "What Tmost crave 
to see," said Thomas Arnold, "and what still seems 
to me no impossible dream, is inquiry and belief going 
together." In so far as that aspiration finds its fulfil- 
ment in the individual and in the church, we shall be 
saved alike from the dogmatism that resists all prog- 
ress of thought, and from the skepticism that dooms 
life to aimlessness and helplessness. In the individual 
and in the church, the creed which is in process of 
formation may serve at every stage the purpose of a 
vigorous religious life. The engineer may rebuild a 
railroad bridge without stopping the running of trains. 
Piece by piece, the old structure is replaced by a new 
and stronger one; and construction keeps pace with 
removal. A still better illustration may be found in 
the growth of the body; for our religious beliefs are 

409 



General Status of Christian Evidences 

not a mechanical construction but a living growth. The 
gristly skeleton of childhood serves the purpose of 
the child's life, but serves also as the mold in which 
is developed the bony skeleton of manhood. Every 
organ is at once a machine for accomplishing the pur- 
poses of the present life, and a matrix in which is 
developed the corresponding organ which shall be fitted 
for the larger work of years to come. So our child- 
hood's conceptions of truth, imperfect as they are, 
serve to guide our child life, but serve also as the 
matrix in which are developed the larger conceptions 
of our manhood. In this growth of individual thought, 
as in the progress of the church at large, there is the 
continuity of organic development. Each stage, alike 
of individual and of collective religious life, is in vital 
connection with the past and the future. And so, we 
may reasonably hope, when at last that great meta- 
morphosis comes to us, and we pass from this embryo 
state of existence to the full life of that other world, 
there will still be no break in the continuity of spiritual 
life. We shall be born into the glories of that heavenly 
world with eyes already prepared for its beatific vision. 
It is obvious that we cannot hope in the near future 
to define the final form of Christian faith. The charac- 
teristic conceptions of modern science, and particularly 
the fruitful idea of evolution, are so novel that the 
human mind has not yet fully comprehended their sig- 
nificance and traced out all their bearings. It may or 
may not be within the power of the human intellect 
sometime to produce a complete and consistent the- 

410 



The Return to Faith 

istic evolutionary philosophy. Certainly such an at- 
tempt, in the present state of knowledge and thought, 
would be premature. I have not attempted in this dis- 
cussion a final delimitation of the territories of science 
and faith. I have sought only to define a modus 
vivendi which may secure peace between the two 
realms while surveys along their frontier are in prog- 
ress. The solutions which have been proposed for 
the problems of religious thought in our age are only 
provisional. "We know in part, and we prophesy in 
part." But, as we have seen, our partial knowledge 
justifies the prophetic hope that no scientific discovery 
will contradict the essence of Christianity, and that 
the end of all questioning will be the r^eestablishment 
of faith. To me it seems unmistakable that our age 
of bold investigation, of truth discovered too fast to 
be understood and coordinated, of doubt and unrest 
and agonized questioning, but of moral earnestness 
and of loyalty to truth, is ending in a return to 
faith.* The pathetic story of Romanes, as told in his 
"Thoughts on Religion" — his twenty years of wander- 
ing in the wilderness of unbelief, and his Pisgah vision 
of the land of promise — is profoundly interesting as 
the experience of one human soul ; but to me it seems 
yet more impressive as a type of the intellectual and 
spiritual life of the age which is passing away. "At 
evening time it shall be light." For the scientific ques- 
tions of our age and of all ages touch not the central 

* Van Dyke, The Gospel /or att Age of Doubt ^ ch. i; Armstrong;, The Re- 
turn to Faith, in Methodist Review, vol. Ixxviii, p. 66 ; Armstrong, Transi- 
tional Eras in Thought^ pp. 107-131, 239-242. 

411 



General Status of Christian Evidences 

truth of Christianity, ''that God was in Christ, recon- 
cihng the world unto himself."* The inarticulate cry 
of universal humanity — 

"An infant crying in the night" — 

finds its interpretation and its answer in Him through 
whom we see the Father. And to Him — "the same 
yesterday and to-day and forever" — the laboring and 
heavy-laden bring their burdens of doubt and question, 
as of sorrow and sin, and find rest unto their souls. 

* II Cor., V, 19. 
412 



INDEX 



Abraham, beginning of reliable 
history in Bible, 122. 
life of, not marked by mir- 
acle, 2>7Z' 

Abyssal zone, life of, 247, 248. 

Acquired characters, inherit- 
ance of, 214. 

Adam, Fall of. See Fall. 

Agnosticism, 394. 

Akkas, represented on Egyp- 
tian monuments, 78. 

Alexandria, Museum of, 4. 

Almagest, the, 19. 

Alphonso X of Castile, 22. 

Alpine plants and insects, 193. 

Alps, fossil shells on, proof of 
Deluge, 90. 

Amphioxus, 182. 

Analogy, provisional beliefs 
may be based on, 249, 315. 

Ancon sheep, 224. 

Animal body, a machine, 138. 

Animals, consciousness of, 270. 

Animals and plants, no demar- 
cation between, 273. 

Animism, 301. 

Antediluvians, longevity of, 
116. 

Anthropology, affected by the- 
ory of evolution, 256. 

Anthropomorphism, lower and 
higher, 309. 
universal in religion, 309, 320, 

406. 
weakness of, 310. 

Anthropomorphism and pan- 
theism, limits of idea of 
God, 320. 

Antiquity of man, 55. 



Antiquity of man, relation of, 
to Biblical chronology, 114. 

Antlers of deer, relation of, to 
sexual selection, 235. 

Ape and man, gradations be- 
tween, 257. 

Apologetics. See Christian evi- 
dences. 

Argument from design, 303. 

Aristotle, 4, 15, 42. 

Armstrong, A. C, 411. 

Arnold, Sir Edwin, 358. 
Thomas, 409. 

Arouet, F. M. See Voltaire. 

Ascension of Jesus. See Jesus. 

Astronomy, evolution in, 142. 
history of, 15. 
theological bearings of, Z7- 

Asvaghosha Bodhisattva, 359. 

Atmosphere, solid particles in, 
246. 

Atoms, manufactured articles, 
316. 
not exactly alike, 317. 
product of evolution, 315. 

Atwater, W. O., 139. 

Atwater-Rosa calorimeter, the, 

139. 
Augustine, Saint, 84, 254. 
Australia, fauna of, 195. 
Avebury, Lord, 57. 

Babylonian civilization, antiq- 
uity of, 80. 

Babylonian mythology, rela- 
tion of, to Hebrew tradi- 
tion, 113. 

Bacon, Francis, Viscount Saint 
Albans, 131, 342, 398. 



413 



Index 



Bacteria, in atmosphere, 246. 
spontaneous generation of, 
242. 
Bacteriology, contributions of, 
to hygiene and medicine, 
247. 
Baldwin, J. M., 220, 221, 264. 
Ball, Sir Robert S., 142. 
Baronius, Cesare, 2)7- 
Bartol, C. A., 345. 
Bateson, William, 225. 
Bathybius, 248. 
Beetles, flightless, 180. 
Benedict, F. G., 139. 
Bennett, W. H., 375. 
Bible, a record of revelation, 
385.. 
authority of, 390. 
chronology of. See Chro- 
nology, 
church existed before, 385. 
describes nature phenom- 
enally, 105. 
errors in, 389. 
inerrancy of, 85, 112, 116, 

255, 389. 
inspiration of, 85, 388. 
language of, not technical, 

38. 
legendary elements in, 362, 

374. 

Biblical philosophy, 275. 

Biology, evolution in, 159. 
tends toward monism, 276, 

Blue of the sky, the, 246. 

Boltzmann, Ludwig, 2)Z- 

Bostrichopus antiquus, 204. 

Botanical classification, indefi- 
niteness of, 196. 

Boucher de Crevecoeur de 
Perthes, J., 56. 

Brahe, Tycho, 28. 

Brain, changes in. See Cere- 
bral changes. 

Branchial arches and slits, 184. 

Breeds, fertility of crosses be- 
tween, 230. 

Brewster, Sir David, 370. 

Brixham Cave, relics in, 59. 



Bronze, Age of, 62, 
Brooks, W. K., 205, 248. 
Brutes, consciousness of, 270. 
Buddha, 358. 
Buffon, G. L. L., Comte de, 

143, 211, 212. 
Butler, Samuel, Bishop, 388, 

393. 

Calculus, invention of, 29. 
Calvin, John, 86. 
Cambrian fauna, the, 201, 205. 
Carbon dioxide, effect of, on 

climate, yz- 
Carboniferous era, sunbeams 

of, furnish heat and light, 

140. 
Carpenter, W. B., 137, 320, 380. 
Catastrophism, 51, 55, ,93, 153, 

157. 

Causality, principle of, 293. 

Cause, idea of, derived from 
volition, 296, 301. 

Cells, evolution of, 251, 
nuclear apparatus of, 250. 

Centaur, illustration of im- 
probability of miracle, 356, 

359. 

Century, First, etc. See First 
Century, etc. 

Cerebral and psychical changes, 
correlated, 262. 
disparate, 264, 294. 

Cerebral changes in mental ac- 
tion, 140. 

Certainty, narrow limits of, 
406. 

Chamberlin, T. C, 73, 152. 

Chaos, preceding the week of 
creation, 92, 

Character, development of, 
300. 
prerogative of man, 311. 

Characters, acquired, inherit- 
ance of, 214. 

Chemistry of carbon com- 
pounds, 250. 

China, antiquity of civilization 
in, 80. 



414 



Index 



China, traditions of deluge in, 

120, 121. 

Christ, evidence of Christian- 
ity, 401. 

reconciliation of philosophy 
and faith, 321. 
Christian civilization abolishes 

natural selection, 237. 
Christian evidences, changes in 
method of, 393, 396. 

changes in relative impor- 
tance of, 384, 400. 

cumulative presentation of, 
398. 

general status of, 391. 

inconsistencies in, 397. 

only probable, 406. 

stronger than evidences of 
theism, 394. 
Christian Scientists, 381. 
Christianity, adaptation of, to 
universal humanity, 405. 

authenticated by miracles, 
351, 382. 

early struggles of, i. 

evidential value of effects of, 
400. 

final form of, cannot be pre- 
dicted, 410. 

introduction of, attended by 
greatest series of miracles, 

status of certain doctrines of, 
287. 

survival of, amid changing 
opinions, 39, 405. 

teaches embodied immortal- 
ity, 279. 

undemonstrable, 406. 
Chronology of Bible, data of, 

114; 

unreliable, 116. 
Circumnavigation of globe, 16. 
Civilization abolishes natural 

selection, 237. 
Clerk-Maxwell, James. See 

Maxwell. 
Clive, Robert, Lord, 340. 
Columbus, Christopher, 16. 



Combustion, theories of, 126. 
Conn, H. W., 160, 214, 223, 

Conscience, evolution of, 277. 
Consciousness, in animals, 270. 

in plants, 274. 

states of. See Psychical 
states. 
Conservation of energy, 9, 125, 

in living bodies, 136. 
not the only mode of causa- 
tion in nature, 296. 
relation of, to freedom of 
will, 293. 
Constantine, 3. 
Cooke, J. P., 15. 
Cope, E. D., 214. 
Copernican theory, 23, 
supposed to contradict the 
Bible, 35. 
Copernicus, 23, 26, 2)^. 
Corinthians, authenticity of 

First Epistle to, 361. 
Courtship in animals, 236. 
Cowper, William, 91. 
Cranial capacity of men and 

apes, 258. 
Creation, an eternal process, 
318. 
Biblical theory of, 89. 
days of, symbolic, 96. 
mediate and immediate, 254. 
method of, not likely to be 

revealed, 105. 
traditional date of, 115. 
two narratives of, in Gene- 
sis, 81. 
Creationism, 260. 
compatible with evolution, 
268. 
Criticism of New Testament, 
constructive results of, 
401. 
Croll, James, 70. 
Crookes, Sir William, 318. 
Crum, W. E., 79. 
Cure of disease by mental im- 
pressions, 381. 



415 



Index 



Curves, as illustrating idea of 

law, 328. 
Cuvier, Georges, Baron, 49, 

163. 

Dana, J. D., loi, 159. 
Darwin, Charles, 159, 163, 202, 

209, 210, 213, 215, 224, 227, 

232, 234, 235, 388. 
Darwin, G. H., 150, 233. 
Darwinians, 213. 
Darwin's Origin of Species, 

controversy over, 252. 
David, life of, not marked by 

miracle, 373. 
Davy, Sir Humphry, 133. 
Deductive sciences, developed 

earlier than inductive, 396. 
Deer, antlers of, 225, 235. 
Deferent of a planet, 20. 
Deism, 337, 393- 
Deluge, Noachian. See Noa- 

chian Deluge, 
traditions of, 120. 
Demonstrative reasoning may 

be consecutive, 396. 
Descartes, Rene, 270. 
Design, argument from, 303. 
Disease cured by mental im- 
pressions, 381. 
Domestic animals, in neolithic 

age, 65. 
instincts in, 214. 
Domestic virtues, evolved by 

natural selection, 279. 
Donaldson, H. H., 140. 
Driver, S. R., 377. 
Drummond, Henry, 160, 251, 

278. 
Dualism, 265, 266. 

compatible with evolution, 

268. 
quasi-monistic phases of, 269. 
relation of, to ethics and re- 
ligion, 267, 277, 279. 
Dubois, Eugene, 77, 258. 

Earth, sphericity of, 15. 
Eccentricity of earth's orbit, 



relation of, to Glacial cli- 
mate, 70. 

Eden, story of, not historic, 
112, 256. 

Egyptian civilization, antiquity 
of, 79- 

Egyptian monuments show dif- 
ferent races of men, 77. 

Eighteenth - century thought, 
characteristics of, 395. 

Elephant, breeding of, 170. 

Elephas primigenius. See Mam- 
moth. 

Elevation of land, effect of, on 
climate, 73. 

Elijah and Elisha, miracles of, 
373- 

Elliptical form of planetary 
orbits, .27. 

Elohistic and Jehovistic narra- 
tives, differences of, 82. 
. Embryology, 181. 

Embryonic stages of higher 
animals resemble lower 
animals, 183. 

Embryos, vertebrate, 185. 

Energy, conservation of. See 
Conservation. 

Environment, effect of, in evo- 
lution, 211. 

Epicycles, 20, 24. 

Ethical distinctions not inval- 
idated by evolution, 277. 

Ethics, founded on psychology, 
not on ontology, 277. 

Evidences of Christianity. See 
Christian evidences. 

Evolution, 9, 142. 

anticipations of, 7, 162, ( 
astronomical, 142. 
biological, 159. 
does not invalidate ethical 

distinctions, 277. 
evidences of origin of spe- 
cies by, 176, 398. 
geological, 153. 
in individual life, 162. 
modifies argument from de- 
sign, 304. 
16 



Index 



Evolution, not atheistic, 254. 
philosophic bearings of, not 
yet comprehended, 276, 
410. 
progress of, intermittent, 

174, 208. 
tends toward monism, 268, 

276. 
the, of heredity, 233. 
theological bearings of, 251. 
why offensive to popular 
theology, 314. 

Evolutionary origin of life, 
supported only by analogy, 
249. 

Evolutionism in geology, heir 
of catastrophism and uni- 
formitarianism, 157. 

Evolutionists, three schools of, 
213. 

Extermination of life, no evi- 
dence of universal, 54, 
94, .155, 161. 

Extinction of parent species 
generally accompanies in- 
troduction of new species, 
199. 

Extrapolation, 330, 331. 

Eye, the, as illustration of de- 
sign, 304. 

Faith, practical, compatible 
with doubt, 409. 

Faith-healers, 381. 

Falconer, Hugh, 57. 

Fall, doctrine of, 283. 
potential, 284. 

Fertility of crosses between 
breeds, 230. 

Feuerbach, L. A., 308. 

First Century, an unscientific 
age, 4. 

Fisher, G. P., 36, 289, 306, 359, 
381. 

Fiske, John, 251, 279. 

Flood, the. See Noachian Del- 
uge. 

Foreknowledge, relation of, to 
prayer, 343. 



Fossil species, often repre- 
sented only by single spec- 
imens, 203. 
Fossilization, conditions of, 204. 
Fossils, characteristic of dif- 
ferent formations, 49. 
destruction of, by erosion 

and metamorphism, 207. 
meaning of, 44. 
Foucault, J. B. L., 131. 
Francis, Saint, of Assisi, 380. 
Freedom of will, 277, 290. 
an inalienable belief, 291. 
foundation of ethics, 277, 

290. 
incomprehensible, 300. 
potential, 298. 

practically assumed when 
. theoretically denied, 291. 
relation of, to conservation 

of energy, 293, 
relation of, to prediction of 

human actions, 297. 
relation of, to principle of 

causality, 293. 
relation of, to providence, 
340. 
Fresnel, A. J., 129. 
Furness, W. H., 362. 

Galilei, Galileo, 25, 29, 36, 37. 

Gama, Vasco da, 16. 

Gastrula, 181. 

Gautama. See Buddha. 

Geikie, Archibald, Sir, 41. 
James, 67. 

Generation, spontaneous. See 
Spontaneous generation. 

Genesis and geology, 81. 

Geocentric theory, universal in 
antiquity, 6, 17. 

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Eti- 
enne, 211, 212. 

Geographical distribution, bear- 
ings of, on evolution, 192. 

Geometrical conception of 
curves, 328. 

Geometrical increase of living 
beings, 169. 

17 



Index 



Geological ages, table of, 103. 
Geological record, imperfection 

of, 202. 
Geological time, length of, 232. 
Geology, evolution in, 153. 
history of, 41. 
progress of, retarded by the- 
ological prejudice, 43. 
Geology and Genesis, 81. 
Germination of seed supposed 
to be spontaneous genera- 
tion, 240. 
Germ-plasm, 217. 
Gethsemane, prayer of Jesus 

in, 348. 
Gill arches and slits, 184. 
Giraffe, evolution of, according 

to Lamarck, 212. 
Glacial period, 67. 
cause of, 69. 
date of, 72, 74. 
longer than postglacial time, 

76. 
oscillations of climate in, 69. 
preceded by continental ele- ■ 
vation, y^. 
God, character attributed to, 
related to character of 
man, 308. 
foreknowledge of, 343. 
immanence of, 255, 313, 318, 

2Z7- 
personality of, 301. 
Gore, J, E., 142. 
Gorilla, cranial capacity of, 

258. 
Gospels, date and authorship 
of, 361. 
discrepancies of, 362. 
honesty of, 2>^Z- 
legendary elements in, 362, 

277- 

Government in society sug- 
gests idea of divine gov- 
ernor, 308. 

Gradation between species, 198. 

Gravitation, discovery of, 9, 30. 

importance of discovery of, 

33, 124. 



418 



Gravitation, law of, may not 
be absolutely true, 334. 

nature of, unknown, 33, 323. 

never deified, 310. 

not a cause, 2>3- 
Gray, Asa, 160, 164, 251, 252. 
Gulick, J. T., 227, 230. 
Guyot, A. H., loi. 

Hallucination, natural history 
of, 368. 
resurrection of Jesus claimed 
to be instance of, 367. 

Harmonizing of discrepancies 
in Bible, 88. 

Haswell, W. A., 201. 

Heat, mechanical equivalent 
of, 133. 
relation of, to light, 134. 
theories of, 131. 

Heavenly bodies, apparent 
movements of, 17. 

Hebrew conception of uni- 
verse, 6. 

Hebrew monotheism, practical 
rather than theoretical, 7. 

Heilprin, Angelo, 187. 

Heliocentric view of solar sys- 
tem, 8, 23. 

Helium, discovery of, 125. 

Helmholtz, H. L. F. von, 137. 

Heredity, 165. 
evolution of, 233. 
Weismann's theory of, 217. 

Herod Antipas, 8. 

Herschel, Sir John F. W., 316. 
Sir William, 151. 

Hessey, J. A., 365. 

Hipparchus, 19. 

Hitchcock, Edward, 93, 97. 

Hoang Ho, inundations of, 
121. 

Hoffman, F. S., 408. 

Hommel, Fritz, 80. 

Homology, 177. 

Hooker, Sir Joseph D., 164. 

Hume, David, 354, 381. 

Hume's argument on miracle, 
355. 



Index 



Hutton, James, 46, 153, 154. 
Huxley, T. H., 157, 160, 241, 

248, 355, 356, 359, 367, 

370. 
Huyghens, Christian, 129. 
Hybrids, sterility of, 229. 
Hypothesis, use of, in science, 

328, 395. 

Immanence of God, 255, 313, 
318, 2,2>7- 

Immortality, Christianity teach- 
es embodied, 279. 
faith in, confirmed by res- 
urrection of Jesus, 384. 
medium of, may be ethereal 

form of matter, 282. 
method of, unknown, 280. 
not dependent on metaphys- 
ical theory of soul, 280. 

Imperfection of geological rec- 
ord, 202. 

Imponderable agents, 128. 

Incarnation, glorification of 
anthropomorphism, 321. 

Incipient stages of organs not 
likely to be useful, 223. 

Indefinite sentence, 238. 

Inductions of science tran- 
scend experience, 264. 

Inductive sciences, developed 
later than deductive, 396. 

Inerrancy of Bible, 85, 112, 
116, 255, 389. 

Infancy, effect of, in evolution 
of man, 279. 

Ingersoll, R. G., 309. 

Inspiration, 85, 387. 

Instinct, 214, 221. 

Insular species, evolution of, 
227. 

Interpolation, 330. 

Interpositions of God in na- 
ture, 312, 337. 

Intra-selection, 225. 

Irish elk, 67. 

Iron, Age of, 62. 

Isolation, a factor in evolu- 
tion, 227. 



James, William, 280. 
Jasher, Book of, 375. 
Java, human remains in, yj, 

257.. 
Jehovistic and Elohistic nar- 
ratives, differences of, 82, 
Jellyfishes, fossil, 201. 
Jericho, healing of blind man 

at, 88. 
Jerome, Saint, 85. 
Jesus, abduction of body of, 
improbable, 364. 
alleged not to have died on 

the cross, 2^y. 
ascension of, 10. 
character of, 357, 401. 
miracles of, 2>77- 
resurrection of. See Resur- 
rection, 
reverence for, characteristic 

of modern thought, 394. 
sepulcher of, found empty, 

364.. 
teachings of, on prayer, 

347- 
virgin birth of, 378. 
John, Saint, an ej-e-witness of 
the resurrection of Jesus, 

Johnson, Samuel, 290. 

Jonah, story of, 376. 

Joshua commanding sun and 
moon, 375. 

Joule, J. P., 133. 

Judaism teaches embodied im- 
mortality, 279. 

Jupiter, atmosphere of, 148. 
moons of, 25. 

Justin Martyr, 386. 

Kant, Immanuel, 142, 280. 

Keane, A. H., 78. 258. 

Keim, Theodor, 371. 

Kepler, Johann, 27, 27, 329. 

Kepler's laws, 27. 
necessary consequences of 
gravitation, 30. 

Kopernik, Nicolas. See Co- 
pernicus. 

19 



Index 



Ladd, G. T., 140, 265, 270. 

La Madeleine, Cave of, pic- 
ture of mammoth found 
in, 60. 

Lamarck, J. B. P. A. de Mo- 
net de, 162, 211. 

Languages, development of, 79. 

Laplace, P. S., Marquis de, 
142, 147. 

Larvae of marine invertebrates, 
minute and free-swim- 
ming, 205. 

Larval stages, adaptive modifi- 
cations in, 186. 
resemblances of, to lower 
forms, 183. 

Lavoisier, A. L., 127, 135. 

Law, moral. See Moral law. 
natural. See Natural law. 

Le Conte, Joseph, 41, 137, 160, 
178, 251, 259. 

Leibnitz, G. F., Baron von, 29. 

Leonardo da Vinci, 44. 

Lewes, G. H., 215. 

Life, origin of, 238. 
progress of, in geological 
time, 188. 

Light, relation of, to heat, 134. 
undulatory theory of, 129. 
velocity of, in air greater 
than in water, 131. 

Locke, John, 408. 

Lodge, Sir Oliver, 15, 318. 

Lombard, J. S., 140. 

Longevity of antediluvians, 116. 

Lord's Day, evidence of res- 
urrection of Jesus, 365. 

Lord's Prayer, the, 347, 350. 

Lotze, R. H., 269, 280. 

Lubbock, Sir John. See Ave- 
bury. 

Luther, Martin, 86. 

Luys, J. B., 140. 

Lyell, Sir Charles, 41, 57, 153, 
161, 164, 232. 



McCarthy, Justin, 253. 
McCosh, James, 251, 253. 
Magellan, Ferdinand, 16. 



Maggots, spontaneous genera- 
tion of, 240, 241. 
Malthus, T. R., 169. 
Mammoth, 50. 
coexistence of, with man, 56, 

S7, 60. 
picture of, from La Made- 
leine, 60. 
Man, antiquity of, 55. 
evidences of evolution of, 

25.6. 
fossil bones of, rare, 57. 
gradations between ape and, 

^$7- 
personality of, 289. 
relics of, associated with ex- 
tinct animals, 56. 

Marriage, necessity of restric- 
tions upon, 238. 

Mary Magdalene, 367. 

Materialism, 265, 

Matter, complexity of, 281. 

Maxwell, J. Clerk, 316. 

Mayer, J. R. von, 133,^ 136. 

Mechanical equivalent of heat, 

Memory, physiological condi- 
tion of, 282. 

Mental states. See Psychical 
states. 

Mesmerists, 381. 

Meteorites, 124. 

Meteors, nebula probably con- 
sisted of, 149. 

Meyer, Eduard, 79. 

Mill, J. S., 292. 

Miller, Hugh, 99. 

Milton, John, 21, 284. 

Miracle, 351. 
a priori improbability of, 9, 

353, 355, 371.. 
confined to critical epochs in 

history of revelation, 372. 
evidential value of, 382. 
Hume's argument on, 355. 
physical meaning of, 335. 
possibility of, 335, 354. 
probability of, to a theist, 

359. 



420 



Index 



Miracle, readily believed in an 

unscientific age, 8. 
Miracles, Biblical, not equally 
credible, 374. 
ecclesiastical, 380. 
modern, 381. 
pagan, 380. 
Missing links, 257. 
Mivart, St. George, 222. 
Mohammedanism teaches em- 
bodied immortality, 279. 
Monism, 265, 266. 
not inconsistent with immor- 
tality, 279. 
tendency of evolution toward, 
268, 276. 
Moon, origin of, 150. 
temperature of, 149. 
Moral character of man, rela- 
tion of, to conception of 
God, 308. 
Moral law, relation of prayer 
to, 344- 
sense of, gives idea of moral 
governor, 308. 
Morgan, C. Lloyd, 215, 220, 

221. 
Morris, Charles, 205, 248. 
Mosaic dispensation, miracles 

of, Z7Z- 
Moulton, F. R., 152. 

Natural law, 321, 

cause of, 336. 

fetish of modern thought, 
322. 

meaning of, 324. 

relation of, to prayer, 345. 

relation of, to providence, 
338. 

uncertamty of, 2>2)2, 354, 406. 
Natural selection, 169, 171. 

a real tendency, 173. 

action of, on man, abolished 
by civilization, 237. 

adequacy of, in absence of 
determinate variation, 222. 

conservative in stable envi- 
ronment, 174. 



Natural selection, ethical effect 
of, 278. 
modifies argument from de- 
sign, 304. 
progressive in changing en- 
vironment, 176. 
relieves a perplexity in nat- 
ural theology, 307. 
Nature. Sec Universe. 
Neanderthal skull, the, 257, 

259- 
Nebula, the, not the begin- 
ning, 315. 
Nebulae, 151. 

Nebular theory, the, 142. 
theological objections to, 
251. 
Negroes, pictures of, on Egyp- 
tian monuments, yj. 
Neo-Lamarckians, 213, 221. 
Neolithic Age, 63. 

date of, 76. 
Neolithic man, an invader in 
Europe, 65. 
associated with animals still 

surviving, 66. 
domesticated animals, 65. 
not an artist, 66. 
stage of culture of, 62,. 
Nero, 3, 8. 

Nerve force, velocity of, 139. 
Newcomb, Simon, 142. 
Newton, Sir Isaac, 29, 30, 124, 

129. 
Niagara Gorge, age of, 75. 
Nicodemus, 382. 
Nineteenth Century, character- 
istics of intellectual and 
religious life in, 394, 395, 
404, 411. 
Noachian Deluge, 45, 90, 118. 
not universal as regards 

earth, 119. 
not universal as regards man, 

122. 
traditional date of, 81. 



Ocean bottom, exploration of, 
247. 



421 



Index 



Ontology, not foundation of 
ethics, 277. 

Orbits of heavenly bodies, sup- 
posed to be circular, 18. 

Orbits of planets, elliptical, 27, 

Organic chemistry, 250. 

Organic selection, 220. 

Osborn, H. F., 159, 220. 

Otter sheep, 224. 

Paine, Thomas, 394. 
Paleolithic Age, 63. 

antiquity of, 76. 
Paleolithic man, artistic ability 
of, 66. 

associated with extinct ani- 
mals, 66. 

in Egypt, 80. 

interglacial, in Europe, 69. 

not indigenous in Europe, ']']. 

stage of culture of, 63. 
Paleontology, bearing of, on 
evolution, 187. 

rise of, 49. 

tabular synopsis of, 103. 
Paley, William, 304, 393. 
Pantheism, 319. 

Pantheism and anthropo- 
morphism, limits of idea 
of God, 320. 
Parallax, annual, of stars, 35. 
Parasitic organisms, 240. 
Parker, T. J., 201. 
Parsons, William. See Rosse. 
Pasteur, Louis, 243. 
Patriarchs, longevity of, 116. 
Paul, Saint, 275, 279, 361, 365. 
Peacock, black-shouldered, 225. 
Pearson, Karl, ZZ, 238, 251. 
Peirce, Benjamin, 306. 
Peptone, synthesis of, 250. 
Personality, infinite, compatible 

with uniformity, 311, 316. 
Personality of God, 301. 
Personality of man, 289. 
Petrie, W. M. Flinders, 80. 
Philosophy, ancient, largely 

esoteric, 5. 
Phlogiston, 126. 



Physicists, views of, on length 
of geological time, 232. 

Physiological selection, 231. 

Picard, Jean, 32. 

Pigeons, breeds of, 230. 

Pithecanthropus erectus, T], 
257. 

Planetary movements, coinci- 
dences in, 143, 

Planetary orbits. See Orbits. 

Planets, temperatures of, 148. 

Plants, consciousness in, 274. 

Plants and animals, no de- 
marcation between, 273. 

Plasticity of living forms, 
greater in earlier time, 233. 

Plato, 19. 

Pneuma and psyche, antithesis 
of, 275. 

Polytheism, 301. 
natural in an unscientific 
age, 7. 

Porter, Noah, 262. 

Prayer, 341. 
expression of faith in provi- 
dence, 341. 
form of, must change, 349. 
limited by scientific knowl- 
edge, 346. 
omnipotent in limited sphere, 

344- 

relation of, to foreknowl- 
edge, 343- 

relation of, to natural law, 

345- 

submissive spirit in, 345, 350. 

superstitious forms of, 342. 

the Lord's, 347, 350. 
Prestwich, Joseph, 57. 
Priestley, Joseph, 127. 
Principia, 29, 396. 
Probability, the guide of life, 

406. 
Proctor, R. A., 15. 
Profiles of human and simian 

skulls, 259. 
Proof-texts, 390. 
Prophecy, function of, 106. 
Protoplasm, evolution of, 251. 



422 



Index 



Providence, 2>2)7- 

relation of, to human voli- 
tion, 340. 
relation of, to natural law, 

338. 
special, 2>Z7, 339- 

Psyche and pneuma, antithesis 
of, 275. 

Psychical and cerebral changes, 
correlated, 262. 
disparate, 264, 294. 

Psychical differences between 
man and brute, 270. 

Psychical nature of man, evi- 
dences of evolution of, 270. 

Psychical states may be cause 
of physical phenomena, 
296. 

Psychology, comparative; 270. 
foundation of ethics, 2yy. 

Psycho - physical parallelism, 
264. 

Ptolemaic theory, 20. 

Ptolemy, 19. 

Putrefaction, relation of, to 
bacteria, 243. 

Pythagoras, 42. 

Quaternary human skulls, 
simian character of, 257. 

Radio-active substances, 318. 
Reconciliation of Genesis and 
geology, 92. 
impossible, iii. 
unnecessary, 112. 
Redi, Francesco, 241. 
Reformation, dogma of iner- 
rancy later than, 86. 
Religion always anthropo- 
morphic, 309, 320. 
Religion and science, conflict 
of, 311, 313. 
reconciliation of, 404, 411. 
Renan, J. E., 367, 394. 
Resurrection of Jesus, 351. 
best attested of miracles, 

352. 
corner-stone of faith of 



primitive church, 352, 366, 

Z77- 
existence of church an evi- 
dence of, 366. 
hallucination theory of, 367. 
historic record of, 361. 
importance of, 351, 360. 
not unnatural, 336. 
regarded as a subjective mir- 
acle, 371. 
renders other miracles cred- 
ible, 372, 380. 
why more credible than any 
other resurrection, 357. 
Revelation, progressive, 389. 

through human life, 386. 
Revelation and the Bible, 385. 
Romanes, G. J., 160, 185, 215, 
227, 230, 266, 306, 360, 411. 
Rosa, E. B., 139. 
Rosse, Earl of, 151. 
Rudimentary organs, 179, 256. 
Rumford, Count, 132. 

Sabbath, distinct from Lord's 

Day, 365. 
the, of creative week, 99. 
Saint-Hilaire, E. Geoffroy. See 

Geoffroy. 
Samaritan Pentateuch, chro- 
nology of, 115. 
Saturn, rings of, 147. 
Schmerling, P. C., 56. 
Schurman, J. G., 251, 277. 
Schiitzenberger, P., 250. 
Schweinfurth, G. A., 78. 
Science, limits of, 322. 
limits sphere of prayer, 346. 
method of, 324. 
possible scope of, 326. 
Science and religion, conflict 

of, 311, 313- 
reconciliation of, 404, 411. 
Sciences, inductive, developed 

later than deductive, 396. 
Scientific discoveries, history 

of, 13, 402, 
Scientific view of universe, 

characteristic ideas of, 8. 



423 



Index 



Scripture. See Bible. 
Sedgwick, Adam, 233. 
Selection, artificial, 172. 

natural. See Natural selec- 
tion. 

organic, 220. 

physiological, 231. 

sexual. See Sexual selec- 
tion. 
Selective value, 223. 
Sentence, indefinite, 238. 
Septuagint, chronology of, 115. 
Sepulcher of Jesus, found 

empty, 364. 
Series, mathematical, 327. 
Sermon on the Mount, the, 

347- 
Sexual selection, 234. 

importance of, in man, 236. 
Shakespeare, William, 369. 
Sheep, ancon or otter, 224. 
Siddhartha. See Buddha. 
Skeletons, animals destitute of, 
not likely to be fossilized, 
201, 205. 
Skepticism, theoretical, com- 
patible with practical 
faith, 409. 
Skulls, human and simian, 

profiles of, 259. 
Smith, Adam, 310. 
John Pye, 95. 
William, 48. 
Smyth, Newman, 251. 
Socrates, 5, 280, 386. 
Solar system, evolution of, 142. 
geocentric theory of, 17. 
heliocentric theory of, 23. 
thermal conditions of, 148. 
Somatoplasm, 217. 
Soul, indivisibility of, not im- 
portant as proof , of im- 
mortality, 280. 
origin of, 260. 

possessed by what orders of 
beings, 272. 
Souls, plurality of, 275. 
South, Robert, 283. 
South America, fauna of, 195. 



Species, crosses between, gen- 
erally sterile, 229. 
delimitation of, most difficult 
in best-known groups, 196. 
origin of, 159. 

Specific characters, utility of, 
222, 225. 

Spectroscope, 125, 152. 

Spencer, Herbert, 225. 

Spinoza, Benedict, 292. 

Spirit. See Soul. 

Spiritualism, 265. 

Spiritualists, 381. 

Spontaneous generation, 239. 
experiments on, 241. 
prejudices in favor of, 239. 

Spores of bacteria, tenacity of 
life of, 245. 

Spy, fossil skull from, 259. 

Stahl, G. E., 126. 

Stars, distance of, 35. 

Sterility, absence of, in crosses 
between breeds, 230. 
presence of, in crosses be- 
tween species, 229. 
prevents dilution of useful 
characters by crossing, 230. 

Stewart, Balfour, 125, 281. 

Stigmata, 380. 

Stone, Age of, 62. 

Struggle for life, the, 170. 

Stumpf, Karl, 269. 

Sun and moon standing still, 

375. 

Swedenborg, Emanuel, 142, 
283. 

Synthesis of organic com- 
pounds, 250. 

Tait, P. G., 281. 

Taylor, F. B., 75. 

Telescope, invention of, 25. 

Temple, Frederick, 298. 

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 157. 

Theological bearings of evolu- 
tion, 251. 

Thompson, Benjamin, Count 
Rumford, 132. 

Traducianism, 261. 



424 



Index 



Tripartite constitution of man, 

275. 
Tycho Brahe. See Brahe. 
Tyler, J. M., 251. 
Tyndall, John, 125, 245. 

Ultra-Darwinians, 213, 221. 
Unconformability, 52, 155, 208. 
Undulatory theory of light, 

129. 
Ungulates, distinctions of, from 
unguiculates, 190. 

generalized character of ear- 
liest, 191. 
Uniformitarianism, 93, 154, 232. 

errors of, 155. 
Universe, a cosmos, not a 
chaos, 327. 

eternity of, 318. 

extension of, in space, 8, 15. 

extension of, in time, 9, 41. 

ground of, must be one, 302. 

magnitude of, 34. 

truthfulness of, 291. 

unity of, 9, 124. 
Urea, synthesis of, 250. 
Use and disuse, effects of, 212. 
Usher, James, 80, 115. 

Van Dyke, Henry, 411. 
Variation, 165, 166. 
determinate and indetermi- 
nate, 210. 
limited and oscillatory under 

ordinary conditions, 167. 
not always minute, 224. 
reality of determinate, 234. 



Variations in single individu- 
als, not likely to be pre- 
served, 226. 

Vasco da Gama, 16. 

Venus, phases of, 25. 

Vertebrates, limbs of, 177. 

Vinci, Leonardo da, 44. 

Virtues, developed by natural 
selection, 278. 

Vital forces, correlated with 
physical, 136. 

Vogt, Karl, 265. 

Voltaire, F. M. Arouet de, 90. 

Wallace, A. R., 160, 163, 194. 

Ward, James, ZZ, 280, 307, 318. 

Waste of life, explained by 
natural selection, 307. 

Weismann, August, 214, 217, 
225. 

Weismannians, 213, 221. 

Whewell, William, 15, 125. 

Whitney, W. D., 79. 

Will, freedom of. See Free- 
dom. 

Winchell, Alexander, 142. 

Wohler, Friedrich, 250. 

Woods, F. H., 121. 

Wundt, W. M., 266. 

Youmans, E. L., 125. 
Young, Thomas, 129. 

Zeno, 292. 

Zittel, K. A. von, 41. 
Zoological classification, indefi- 
niteness of, 196. 



425 



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